CHRPNICLE5  oftU 
WHITE.  MOUNTAINS 

"t^  •  Frederick,^?C(  Kilbournc 


No.  '34Z 


CHRONICLES   OF   THE 
WHITE  MOUNTAINS 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/clironiclesofwliitOOkilbiala 


THE   FLUME,    BEFORE  THE    BOULDER    FELL 

The  Boulder  (shown  lodged  between  the  Walls)  fell  into  the  Stream  during 

a  Storm  and  Flood  in  June,  1883 


CHRONICLES  OF  THE 
WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

BY 

FREDERICK  W.  KILBOURNE 

Wi^A  Illustrations 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

<^\%  ifUtEt^ibe  ^xzii  CambriDoe 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,   1916,  BY  FREDKRICK  W.   KILBOURNE 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  May  tqib 


F 


TO 

B.P.,  J.P.K.,  AND  H.R.H. 


1066151 


IN  THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mountains  in  whose  vast  shadows  live  great  names. 
On  whose  firm  pillars  rest  mysterious  dawns, 
And  sunsets  that  redream  the  apocalypse; 
A  world  of  billowing  green  that,  veil  on  veil, 
Turns  a  blue  mist  and  melts  in  lucent  skies; 
A  silent  world,  save  for  slow  waves  of  wind, 
Or  sudden,  hollow  clamor  of  huge  rocks 
Beaten  by  valleyed  waters  manifold;  — 
Airs  that  to  breathe  is  life  and  joyousness; 
Days  dying  into  music;  nights  whose  stars 
Shine  near,  and  large,  and  lustrous;  these,  0  these, 
These  are  for  memory  to  life's  ending  hour. 

Richard  Watson  Gilder 


PREFACE 

Allen  H.  Bent,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  ad- 
mirable Bibliography  of  the  White  Mountains,  pub- 
lished in  191 1,  makes  the  doubtless  somewhat  sur- 
prising remark  that  "the  White  Mountains  .  .  . 
have  had  more  written  about  them,  probably,  than 
any  other  mountains,  the  Alps  alone  excepted.'* 
When  one  seeks  an  explanation  for  this  circum- 
stance, that  a  district  of  so  limited  area  and  moun- 
tains of  such  relatively  low  elevation  have  received 
an  apparently  disproportionate  amount  of  literary 
attention,  one  may  find  it,  in  part  at  least,  as 
pointed  out  by  the  author  ^  of  an  article  printed  now 
nearly  twenty-five  years  ago,  in  the  facts  that  these 
mountains  are  the  only  considerable  group  worthy 
of  the  name  of  mountains  in  the  northeastern  United 
States  and  that  they  are,  with  the  exception  of  the 
until  recently  almost  unknown  and  comparatively 
inaccessible  Southern  Appalachians  of  North  Caro- 
lina, the  only  highlands  of  scenic  consequence  in  the 
eastern  part  of  the  country.  The  facts  just  named, 
coupled  with  that  of  the  nearness  of  the  White 
Mountains  to  the  North  Atlantic  coast  and  their 
consequent  accessibility  to  the  people  of  the  earliest 
settled  portion  of  the  United  States  and  to  European 
visitors  to  America  as  well,  early  rendered  them 

*  William  Howe  Downes  in  "The  Literature  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains,*' New  England  Magazine,  August,  1891. 

ix 


PREFACE 

widely  famed  for  their  scenery  and  thus  drew  to 
them  the  attention  of  the  makers  of  books. 

If  it  should  be  inquired,  further,  why  these  hills, 
so  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  Rockies,  for 
instance,  should  have  been  made  so  much  of  and 
should  still  retain  so  much  of  men's  interest,  it  may 
be  adduced  that  as  respects  mountains  in  general 
scenic  attractiveness  depends  far  more  upon  other 
considerations  than  that  of  altitude  for  its  appeal 
and  that  the  White  Mountains  are  a  striking  case 
in  support  of  this  opinion,  for  it  is  the  testimony  of 
travelers  that  the  relative  inferiority  in  height  of  the 
New  England  hills  does  not  detract  from  their 
grandeur  and  beauty  or  cause  them  to  lose  interest 
for  those  familiar  with  loftier  peaks  and  ranges. 
Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if  any  other  mountains  of  any- 
thing like  their  altitude  are  more  impressive  or 
stupendous  in  aspect,  and,  as  to  the  character  of 
the  landscape  views  they  offer  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  beholder,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  they  prove  the 
truth  of  Humboldt's  dictum  —  "The  prospect  from 
minor  mountains  is  far  more  interesting  than  that 
from  extreme  elevations,  where  the  scenery  of  the 
adjacent  country  is  lost  and  confounded  by  the 
remoteness  of  its  situation."  At  any  rate,  the  ap- 
peal of  the  White  Hills  to  the  imagination  of  men 
has  always  been  strong,  and  therein  lies  the  chief 
reason  for  the  existence  of  so  many  books  about 
them. 

In  view  of  this  fact  of  there  being  so  voluminous 
a  literature  on  the  subject,  the  preparation  of 
another  volume  to  be  added  to  such  an  apparent 


PREFACE 

plethora  would  seem  at  first  blush  to  be,  if  not  an 

absolutely  gratuitous  performance,  at  least  a  work 
of  supererogation.  The  only  circumstance  that  may 
be  brought  forward  to  justify  the  undertaking  of 
such  a  project  must  be  the  notion  that  the  book  fills 
a  gap  —  occupies,  as  it  were,  a  field  that  is  not  now 
cultivated  and  that  has  been  for  a  long  time  neg- 
lected —  and  thus  supplies  a  need.  Such,  in  any 
event,  is  my  belief,  and  it  is  to  the  historical  side  of 
the  subject  that  I  allude. 

Let  me  name  and  briefly  characterize  the  princi- 
pal books  on  the  White  Mountains  and  thereby 
achieve,  if  I  can,  the  double  purpose  of  demonstrat- 
ing that  there  is  such  a  lack  in  this  literature  as  I 
have  just  maintained  to  exist,  and  of  acknowledging 
some  of  the  sources  of  the  information  I  shall  present 
later  on. 

The  first  extended  and  detailed  descriptions  of  the 
scenery  of  the  region  are  those  which  are  to  be  found 
in  volume  II  of  President  Dwight's  Travels  in  New 
England  and  New  York,  published  in  1821.  The 
Mountains  were  first  descriptively  dealt  with  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  be  the  exclusive  subject  of  a 
separate  volume,  by  the  botanist  William  Oakes, 
whose  Scenery  of  the  White  Mountains,  with  sixteen 
lithographic  plates,  appeared  in  1848.  The  scenic 
beauties  of  the  region  were  delineated  and  inter- 
preted in  poetry  and  poetic  prose  by  the  genius  of 
Starr  King,  whose  The  White  Hills;  their  Legends, 
Landscape  and  Poetry,  originally  published  in  1859- 
60,  is  a  classic  of  mountain  literature  and  will  doubt- 
less ever  remain  the  best  book  of  its  kind  about  the 

xi 


PREFACE 

Mountains.  The  Reverend  Julius  H.  Ward's  The 
White  Mountains;  a  Guide  to  their  Interpretation 
(1890^),  is  another  work,  to  quote  from  the  author's 
preface,  "  written  in  illustration  of  the  modern  inter- 
pretation of  Nature  which  has  been  taught  us  by 
Emerson  and  Wordsworth  and  Ruskin."  In  this 
volume  of  Ward's,  the  scenery  of  different  localities 
is  described  and  the  emotions  evoked  and  thoughts 
suggested  by  mountain  peaks  or  groups  and  other 
scenic  features  of  the  district  are  presented.  Samuel 
Adams  Drake,  in  his  The  Heart  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains, their  Legend  and  Scenery,  with  illustrations  by 
W.  Hamilton  Gibson  (1881),  not  only  describes  the 
region,  but  gives  a  wealth  of  legendary,  historical, 
and  other  information.  Mr.  Gibson's  pictures  are,  it 
may  be  remarked  in  passing,  of  high  merit,  giving, 
as  they  do  perhaps  better  than  any  others,  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  height,  massiveness,  and  precipi- 
tousness  of  the  mountain  walls,  as  well  as  of  the 
beauties  of  landscape  and  of  forest  scenery. 

The  scientific  aspects  of  the  region  have  been 
thoroughly  studied  and  extensively  set  forth  in  a 
multitude  of  books  and  articles  written  by  a  host  of 
trained  and  competent  scholars  and  observers,  in- 
cluding Oakes,  Tuckerman,  Hitchcock,  Huntington, 
Agassiz,  Guyot,  Scudder,  Slosson,  and  Emerton, 
while  the  natural  history  has  been  amply  and  well 
taken  care  of  in  the  books  of  the  late  Frank  Bolles, 
the  late  Bradford  Torrey,  Winthrop  Packard,  and 
others. 

The  field  of  the  guide-book  is  fairly  well  covered 

»  Third  edition,  1896. 
xii 


PREFACE 

by  Chisholm's  White  Mountain  Guide-Book,  prepared 
originally  by  the  late  M.  F.  Sweetser.  The  same 
writer's  The  White  Mountains;  a  Handbook  for  Trav- 
elers, which  embodies  the  results  of  thorough  and 
extensive  explorations  made  in  1875,  was  first  pub- 
lished in  1876  and  was  last  revised  down  to  1896,  the 
year  before  its  editor's  death.  It  is  the  most  com- 
plete local  guide  I  have  ever  seen,  and  revision  to 
date  is  all  that  is  needed  to  make  it  still  of  excep- 
tional value.  Baedeker's  United  States  contains  an 
accurate  and  comprehensive  section  on  the  Moun- 
tains. The  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  published 
in  1907  the  first  part  of  a  valuable  Guide  to  the 
Paths  and  Camps  in  the  White  Mountains.  Part  II 
will  be  published  this  year. 

The  history  of  the  White  Mountains  is  literary 
ground  that  has  been  for  the  most  part  untilled  for 
many  years.  Frank  H.  Burt,  editor  of  Among  the 
Clouds  in  succession  to  his  father,  prints  regularly 
a  valuable  chronology  (copyrighted)  in  his  paper, 
and  in  his  booklet  Mount  Washington,  published  in 
1904,  he  has  given  a  summary  of  the  history  of  the 
chief  peak  and  various  items  of  historical  information 
about  the  Mountains  generally.  Sweetser's  White 
Mountains  contains  an  abundance  of  historical 
material,  mainly  in  the  form  of  notes.  The  principal 
historical  works  on  the  Mountains  are  more  than 
half  a  century  old  and  are  out  of  print.  Lucy 
Crawford's  The  History  of  the  White  Mountains  from 
the  First  Settlement  of  Upper  Coos  and  Pequaket  was 
first  published  in  1846;  J.  H.  Spaulding's  Historical 
Relics  of  the  White  Mountains  appeared  in  1855;  and 

xiii 


PREFACE 

Benjamin  G.  Willey's  Incidents  in  White  Mountain 
History  dates  also  from  1855.^ 

None  of  these  is  a  systematic  chronicle  of  events. 
The  first  is  not  a  history,  as  it  purports  to  be,  but  is 
in  reality  mostly  an  autobiography  of  the  pioneer 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  apparently  dictated  in  large 
part  by  him  to  his  wife,  the  nominal  author.  It  is 
full  of  interesting  information,  simply  and  often 
quaintly  set  down,  about  the  early  days.  The  second 
is  a  very  miscellaneous  collection  of  Indian  legends, 
old  traditions,  and  brief  relations  of  early  events  and 
incidents,  some  of  which  were  important  and  many 
trivial,  with  accounts  of  some  later  occurrences  of 
which  the  author  had  personal  knowledge.  The  last 
is  the  most  serious  attempt  to  write  the  history  of 
the  district.  It  presents,  without  much  sense  of 
proportion,  a  great  body  of  information  concerning 
the  pioneer  days  in  the  region,  much  of  it  in  the 
form  of  anecdotes  illustrating  backwoods  life,  and  is 
especially  full  in  its  account  of  the  destruction  of  the 
author's  brother's  family  and  in  Indian  history  and 
traditions. 

It  is  this  last  long  unoccupied  and  never  ade- 
quately cultivated  field  that  I  have  attempted  to 
till,  with  the  result  that  follows  and  constitutes 
the  body  of  this  work. 

The  existence  of  Mr.  Bent's  Bibliography  ^  renders 

*  The  date  of  publication  is  1856.  It  was  reissued,  with  minor 
revisions  and  under  the  title,  History  oj  the  White  Mountains,  by 
Frederick  Thompson  in  1870, 

*  The  Society  of  American  Foresters  has  published  an  extensive 
and  valuable  Bibliography  of  the  Southern  Appalachian  and  White 
Mountain  Regions,  compiled  by  Helen  E.  Stockbridge.  It  dates  also 
from  191 1. 

xiv 


PREFACE 

superfluous  the  appending  of  any  to  this  book.  My 
indebtedness  is  to  many  writers.  Much  information 
was  obtained  also  from  correspondents.  To  all  I 
make  grateful  acknowledgment.  I  have  examined 
many  guide-books,  books  of  travel,  newspapers  (par- 
ticularly Among  the  Clouds  and  the  White  Mountain 
Echo),  and  other  sources.  Specific  obligations,  not 
hereinbefore  acknowledged  by  naming  books,  will 
appear  in  place.  Pains  have  been  taken  to  verify 
quotations  and  statements  by  going  to  the  original 
sources  whenever  I  could  obtain  access  to  them.  I 
have  purposely  refrained  from  adding  footnotes  un- 
less some  additional  information  contributed  or  side- 
light thrown  thereby  seemed  to  warrant  them.  Mere 
references  to  the  places  or  authorities  cited  I  have 
omitted,  as  interruptions  to  the  reading  and  affecta- 
tions of  scholarliness. 

A  word,  in  conclusion,  as  to  the  guiding  principle 
followed  in  selecting  subjects  for  illustration.  As 
this  is  a  work  dealing  more  especially  with  man's 
associations  with  the  region  and  his  modifications  of 
the  appearance  of  it,  the  pictures  presented  should 
have  to  do  mostly  with  human  works.  Whenever 
a  picture  combining  scenic  with  historical  interest 
could  be  used,  the  idea  of  doing  so  was  kept  in 
mind,  but,  in  general,  in  the  presentation  of  illus- 
trations, emphasis  has  been  laid,  properly,  upon 
the  historical  side  of  this  matter. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION Xxiii 

I.   INDIAN   LEGEND  AND  HISTORY       ....        I 

II.   EARLY  EXPLORERS 17 

III.  FIRST    SETTLEMENTS    AND    SETTLERS  :     I.   THE 

TOWNS 39 

'  IV.  FIRST    SETTLEMENTS    AND    SETTLERS:    II.    THE 

SOLITARY   PLACES  —  THE    WILLEY    DISASTER      70 

V.  FURTHER  DISCOVERIES  AND  EXPLORATIONS  — 
SOME  NOTED  AMERICAN  VISITORS  OF  THE 
EARLY  DAYS Id 

VI.  SOME  FOREIGN  VISITO"RS  AND  THEIR  AC- 
COUNTS OF  THEIR  TOURS  OF  THE  WHITE 
MOUNTAINS 139 

VII.  the'  early   HOTELS   AND   THE   BEGINNINGS   OF 

THE  REGION  AS  A  SUMMER   RESORT  .         .   I54 

VIII.   THE     POETS     AND     PAINTERS     IN     THE     WHITE 

HILLS 175 

IX.  THE  LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS    OF  THE 

MOUNTAINS 204 

X.   THE      COMING      OF      THE      RAILROADS  —  THEIR 

LATER  EXTENSIONS 220 

XI.  THE  HOTELS  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  —  THE 
CARRIAGE  ROAD  AND  THE  MOUNT  WASH- 
INGTON RAILWAY  — HOTELS  AND  SHELTERS 
ON   OTHER  SUMMITS 229 

xvii 


CONTENTS 

xii.  some     noteworthy     white     mountain 

"characters" 259 

xiii.  casualties  on  the  presidential  range  — 
the  terrible  experience  of  dr.  ball  — 
some  destructive  landslides        .      .  267 

xiv.  winter  ascents  of  mount  washington  — 
the  winter  occupation  of  mount 
moosilauke  and  of  mount  washing- 
ton —  the  u.s.  signal  service  on 
mount  washington 3o5 

xv.  later  hotels 331 

xvi.  early  trails  and  path-builders  —  the 
appalachian  mountain  club  and  its 
work  in  the  white  mountains      .      .  345 

xvii.  the  great  fire  on  mount  washington  — 

other  recent  events  of  interest      .  36o 

xviii.  the  lumber  industry  in  the  white 
mountains  — the  peril  of  the  forests 
—  the  white  mountain  national  for- 
est—other reservations  ....  377 

xix.  the  changes  in  the  character  of  white 
mountain  travel  and  business  in  re- 
cent years 405 

INDEX 411 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  FLUME   BEFORE  THE   BOULDER  FELL  FrOtlUspiece 

From  a  photograph  by  F.  G.  Weller 

THE  DEATH   OF  CHOCORUA 12 

From  an  engraving  by  G.  W.  Hatch  after  the  painting  by  Thomas 
Cole 

THE  NOTCH  HOUSE 86 

From  an  engraving  by  J.  Couaen  In  Willis's  American  Scenery,  after 
a  drawing  by  W.  H.  Bartlett 

THE  WILLEY  HOUSE 9O 

From  an  engraving  by  E.  Benjamin  in  Willis's  American  Scenery, 
after  a  drawing  by  W.  H.  Bartlett 

THE   OLD  MAN   OF  THE  MOUNTAIN     ....   102 
From  a  photograph  by  Blair,  Bretton  Woods,  N.  H. 

THE  OLD  MOUNT  CRAWFORD  HOUSE  AT  BEMIS     .  1 58 

From  Starr  King's  The  White  Hills,  Estes  &  Lauriat,  Boston,  1887 

THE  FRANCONIA  NOTCH,  WITH  THE  LAFAYETTE 

HOUSE 166 

From  a  lithograph  by  J.  H.  Bufford,  Boston,  in  Oakes's  White  Moun- 
tain Scenery,  after  a  drawing  by  Isaac  Sprague 

THE    OLD    PROFILE    HOUSE,    OPENED    1 853,     CLOSED 

1905 170 

From  a  photograph  by  F.  G.  Weller 

THE  FLUME  HOUSE I70 

An  old  view  showing  the  house  when  smaller  than  at  present 

A  VIEW  NEAR  CONWAY 1 92 

From  an  engraving  by  Fenncr,  Sears  &  Co.,  after  a   painting  by 
Thomas  Cole 

xix 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  DOUBLE  GATE   OF  CRAWFORD  NOTCH  .  .   226 

From  a  pbotograDh  by  Blalr 

HALFWAY  HOUSE   ON  THE  CARRIAGE   ROAD         .  .  234 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio,  Gorham,  N.  H. 

Jacob's  ladder,  mount  Washington  railway     .  240 

Showing  the  early  type  of  locomotive  with  vertical  boiler 

From  a  heUotype  in  M.  F.  Sweetaer's  Views  in  the  White  Mountains 

SUMMIT  HOUSE  AND  OBSERVATORY,  MOUNT  WASH- 
INGTON, ABOUT   1895 250 

From  a  photograph  by  Peter  Eddy,  Fabyan,  N.  H. 

THE   NEW   SUMMIT   HOUSE    ON   MOUNT   WASHINGTON, 

ERECTED  AND   OPENED  IN   I915     .  .  .  .   25O 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

SUMMIT  OF  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  IN  1854:  TIP-TOP 
HOUSE,  OLD  SUMMIT  HOUSE,  AND  FIRST  OBSERV- 
ATORY          256 

From  Willey's  Incidents  in  White  Mountain  History 

TIP-TOP  HOUSE   ON  MOUNT  MOOSILAUKE  .  .  .   256 

From  a  copyright  photograph  by  F.  C.  Jackson,  Warren,  li.  H.,  1913 

THE  HOUSE  THAT  JACK  BUILT  ....  264 

From  a  photograph  by  Peter  Ekidy 

CURTIS     MONUMENT,     LAKE     OF    THE    CLOUDS,     AND 

A.  M.  C.   HUT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   278 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

CLIMBING  MOUNT  WASHINGTON   IN  WINTER        .  .   306 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

OBSERVER,   SUMMIT  OF  MOUNT  WASHINGTON,  ABOUT 

1875 316 

From  a  photograph  by  B.  W.  Kilbum 
XX 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE    SUMMIT    HOUSE    IN    WINTER,    ABOUT    1 875         .   316 

From  a  photograph  by  B.  W.  Kilbum 

THE  FIRST  GLEN  HOUSE 338 

From  a  heliotype  in  M.  F.  Sweetaer's  Views  in  the  Whiu  Mountains 

THE  SECOND  GLEN  HOUSE,    1885-1893       .  .  .   338 

From  the  Glen  House  Book,  1889 

THE  MOUNT  WASHINGTON    HOTEL,    BRETTON    WOODS  342 

From  a  photograph  by  Blair 

THE  MOUNT  PLEASANT  TRAIL 35O 

From  a  photograph  by  Blair 

A.  M.  C.  HUTS   ON  MOUNT  MADISON     .  .  .     *      .  35O 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

A.   M.  C.   HUT   ON  MOUNT  MONROE    ....   354 
From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

MOUNT  MONROE  HUT  INTERIOR  ....   354 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Shorey  Studio 

THE    FIRE    ON    MOUNT   WASHINGTON    AS    SEEN   FROM 

GORHAM 364 

From  a  photograph  by  Guy  L.  Shorey 

LOST  RIVER 372 

From  a  photograph 

MAP    OF    THE    WHITE    MOUNTAIN    NATIONAL    FOREST  398 
ROAD    AND    TRAIL    MAP    OF    THE    WHITE    MOUNTAIN 

REGION         .        .        .        .    „   •    .    .        Endpaper 


INTRODUCTION 

Seventy  miles  in  an  air  line  from  the  Atlantic, 
northwesterly  from  Portland,  Maine,  lies  the  grand 
and  beautiful  group  of  stern  and  lofty  hills,  with 
rugged  valleys  and  gentle  intervales  interspersed, 
which  is  called  by  the  commonplace  appellation  of 
the  "White  Mountains,"  or,  sometimes,  especially 
in  literary  use,  the  "White  Hills."  This  name  is 
applied  both  to  the  entire  group  (made  by  some  to 
include,  besides  the  New  Hampshire  ranges  and 
peaks,  the  neighboring  hills  in  western  Maine),  and 
also,  specifically,  to  the  range  containing  the  highest 
peaks,  now  commonly  designated,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons, the  "Presidential  Range." 

In  the  nomenclature  of  physical  geography  these 
northern  hills  are  termed  monadnocks,  a  name  given 
to  more  or  less  isolated  residual  elevations  composed 
of  rock  which  has  resisted  the  general  wearing-down 
of  the  former  plateau,  of  which  the  heights  formed 
a  part,  to  the  present  peneplain.  Geologically,  the 
White  Mountains  belong  to  the  older  or  crystalline 
belt  of  the  Appalachian  system  and  are  made  up  of 
ancient  metamorphic  rocks,  chiefly  gneisses  with  a 
core  of  granite  forming  the  highest  portion.  The  area 
of  the  region  is  about  812,000  acres. 

The  epithet  "White"  alludes,  of  course,  to  the 
appearance  of  the  summits  and  seems  most  appro- 
priate in  the  six  months,  more  or  less,  when  they 

xxiii 


INTRODUCTION 

are  covered  with  snow.  The  winter  dress  of  the 
Mountains,  which  is  often  worn  temporarily  in 
other  seasons,  would  seem  to  furnish  the  most  prob- 
able explanation  of  the  origin  of  their  name,  for 
which  the  early  navigators  along  the  coast,  to  whom 
they  were  a  landmark,  appear  to  be  responsible. 
This  very  plausible  supposition  becomes,  however, 
upon  investigation  more  and  more  improbable,  the 
preponderance  of  evidence  in  the  end  inclining  the 
scale  in  favor  of  the  view  that  the  Mountains  are  so 
called  from  their  white  or  whitish-gray  aspect  when 
seen  from  a  distance,  ^  which  appearance  is  due  partly 
to  the  bare  grayish  rocks  of  the  treeless  summits,  but 
chiefly  to  atmospheric  conditions.  The  question  is 
not  one,  it  would  seem,  that  can  be  definitively 
settled.  Indeed,  it  is  not  one  of  great  moment;  but, 
nevertheless,  I  have  thought  it  a  subject  of  sufficient 
interest  t6  justify  a  bringing  together  of  such  refer- 
ences bearing  on  it  as  I  have  been  able  to  collect. 
From  these  statements,  the  reader  may,  if  he  will, 
form  his  own  conclusion,  with  the  firm  assurance 
that,  whichever  way  his  mental  vote  may  be  cast, 
no  one  can  declare  him  to  be  absolutely  wrong. 
The  regrettable  thing  in  connection  with  this  matter 
of  the  name  of  the  Mountains  is  not,  in  any  case, 
the  uncertainty  as  to  its  origin,  but  is,  rather,  the 
unpleasing  certainty  that  a  commonplace  and  un- 
distinctive  appellation  has  been  fastened  upon  them 
for  good  and  all. 

*  On  the  side  of  Samuel  Lewis's  map  of  1794  in  the  following  note: 
"N.  B,  The  White  Hills  appear  many  leagues  off  at  Sea  like  White 
Clouds;  just  rising  above  the  Horizon." 

xxiv 


INTRODUCTION 

Just  when  the  White  Mountains  received  their 
present  designation  is  another  subject  of  inquiry 
that  cannot  be  positively  determined.  The  earliest 
name  I  have  found  is  that  of  "the  Christall  hill," 
applied  to  the  highest  peak  or  to  the  main  range.  This 
occurs  in  a  passage  in  Christopher  Levett's  A  Voyage 
into  New-England,  published  in  1628.  Now,  as  the 
region  had  not  then  been  visited  by  white  men,  this 
name  must,  it  is  evident,  allude  to  the  appearance  of 
the  summits  as  affected  by  distance  and  the  atmos- 
phere. The  fact  of  the  earlier  occurrence,  also,  of 
this  appellation  negatives  the  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  it  given  in  Belknap's  History  of  New  Hamp- 
shire on  the  authority  of  Hubbard's  manuscript 
History  of  New  England.  The  passage  in  Belknap's 
work  refers  to  the  explorers  of  1642,  the  first  white 
visitors,  and  runs  as  follows:  "They  had  great  ex- 
pectation of  finding  precious  stones  on  these  mts.; 
and  something  resembling  crystal  being  picked  up, 
was  sufficient  to  give  them  the  name  of  the  crystal- 
hills.'*  Whatever  the  origin  of  this  name,  which  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  common  one  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  antedates,  as  its 
occurrence  in  Levett's  narrative  testifies,  the  con- 
nection of  Darby  Field  with  the  Mountains,  and  so 
cannot  have  been  given  to  them  by  him,  as  some 
writers  say.  Governor  Winthrop,  recording  in  his 
journal  Field's  ascent  of  the  future  Mount  Washing- 
ton, speaks  of  it  as  "  the  white  hill,"  and  when  again 
mentioning  the  event  uses  the  plural  of  the  same 
name.^    The  present  designation  first  appears  in 

*  The  first  passage  is  quoted  in  full  on  page  20.   The  second  be- 

XXV 


INTRODUCTION 

print  as  a  distinctive  name,  it  is  believed,  in  Josse- 
lyn's  New  England's  Rarities  Discovered,  a  work  pub- 
lished in  1672.^ 

Drake,  who  holds  strongly  to  the  opinion  that  the 
name  of  the  Mountains  does  not  allude  to  the  pres- 
ence of  snow  on  them,  declares  that  "the  early 
writers  succeed  only  imperfectly  in  accounting  for 
this  phenomenon  [the  white  appearance  of  the  sum- 
mits], which  for  six  months  of  the  year  at  least,"  he 
says,  "has  no  connection  whatever  with  the  snows 
that  cover  the  highest  peaks  only  from  the  middle  of 
October  to  the  middle  of  April,  a  period  during  which 
few  navigators  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  visited  our  shores,  or,  indeed,  ventured  to 
put  to  sea  at  all."  He  adduces  quotations  directly 
*  denying  the  theory  he  is  opposing,  from  two  eight- 
eenth-century writers,  one  of  whom,  William  Doug- 
lass, says  2  positively:  "They  ['the  White  Hills,  or 
rather  mountains ']  are  called  White,  not  from  their 
being  continually  covered  with  snow,  but  because 
they  are  bald  a- top,  producing  no  trees  or  brush,  and 
covered  with  a  whitish  stone  or  shingle";  while  the 
other,  the  celebrated  ranger,  Major  Robert  Rogers, 
states  ^  that  the  Mountains  are  "so  called  from  their 


gins,  "Mention  is  made  before  of  the  white  hills,  discovered  by  one 
Darby  Field." 

1  The  passage  is  quoted  on  page  23. 

*  In  his  A  Summary  .  .  .  of  the  First  Planting,  .  .  .  and  Present 
State  of  the  British  Settlements  in  North  America  (1748-53). 

'  In  his  A  Concise  Account  of  America  (1765).  Rogers  says  further: 
"I  cannot  learn  that  any  person  was  ever  on  the  top  of  these  moun- 
tains. I  have  been  told  by  the  Indians  that  they  have  often  attempted 
it  in  vain,  by  reason  of  the  change  of  air  they  met  with,  which  I  am 
inclined  to  believe,  having  ascended  them  myself  till  the  alteration 

xxvi 


INTRODUCTION 

appearance,  which  is  much  like  snow,  consisting,  as 
is  generally  supposed,  of  a  white  flint,  from  which 
the  reflection  of  the  sun  is  very  brilliant  and  daz- 
zling." 

In  support  of  the  other  view  may  be  cited  the 
statement  of  Josselyn  ^  as  to  the  presence  of  snow 
on  the  Mountains,  which  he  evidently  regards  as 
the  reason  for  their  name,  and  the  following  remark 
of  Belknap  in  this  connection:  " During  this  period, 
of  nine  or  ten  months  [end  of  October  or  beginning 
of  November  to  July]  the  mountains  exhibit  more  or 
less  of  that  bright  appearance  from  which  they  are 
denominated  white  ...  it  may  with  certainty  be  con- 
cluded, that  the  whiteness  of  them  is  wholly  caused 
by  snow,  and  not  by  any  other  white  substance,  for 
in  fact,  there  is  none."  ^ 

The  most  extended  discussion  of  the  subject  of 
the  whiteness  of  these  mountains  and  its  cause  that 
I  have  come  across  in  my  reading  is  in  volume  III 
of  the  English  writer  Edward  Augustus  Kendall's 
Travels  through  the  Northern  Parts  of  the  United  States 
in  the  Years  i8oy  and  1808,  a  work  published  in  1809. 
Of  the  twenty  pages  devoted  to  an  account  of  his 
tour  through  the  White  Mountains,  eight  are  en- 
tirely given  up  to  this  topic,  of  which  he  also  speaks 
briefly  in  another,  and  earlier,  chapter. 

After  quoting  Belknap's  conclusion,  just  given, 

of  air  was  very  perceptible,  and  even  then  I  had  not  advanced  half- 
way up;  the  valleys  below  were  then  concealed  from  me  by  clouds." 

^  See  page  23. 

*  Belknap  says  in  another  place:  "Some  writers,  who  have  at- 
tempted to  give  an  account  of  these  mountains,  have  ascribed  the 
whiteness  of  them  to  shining  rocks,  or  a  kind  of  white  moss." 

xxvii 


INTRODUCTION 

and  expressing  the  opinion  that  the  historian  relied 
"on  the  statements  of  persons  very  incompetent  to 
make  such  as  are  to  the  purpose,"  he  goes  on  to  say 
that,  while  he  saw  the  Mountains  only  when  they 
were  covered  with  snow,  he  was  assured  that  they 
appear  white  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  and  he  says 
further,  that  he  had  himself  observed  a  similar 
phenomenon  elsewhere.  As  authority  for  this  fact 
of  the  perennial  white  appearance  of  the  New 
Hampshire  hills,  he  cites  the  result  of  the  obser- 
vations of  "the  younger  Rosebrook,  in  Briton's 
Woods,"  who  was  frequently  employed  as  a  guide 
and  invariably,  when  performing  this  service,  ques- 
tioned as  to  this  matter  by  those  whom  he  was  con- 
ducting. Rosebrook's  statement  was  that,  when  the 
snow  is  melted,  the  summits  still  appear  white  when 
seen  from  a  considerable  distance,  but  not  when 
viewed  from  nearer  points,  and  that  he  was  puzzled 
to  account  for  this,  the  explanation  that  it  is  due  to 
moss  not  being  satisfactory  to  him.  That  this  condi- 
tion must  be  true  of  the  White  Mountains  and  that 
it  is  not  peculiar  to  them  was  shown,  it  seemed  to  the 
traveler,  by  the  remark  made  to  him  by  a  Vermont 
farmer  with  respect  to  the  mountains  west  of  Lake 
Champlain  as  seen  from  his  side  of  the  lake:  "Some 
of  their  tops  were  white  all  the  year  round,  even  when 
the  snow  was  gone."  Mr.  Kendall  was  finally,  when 
visiting  the  St.  Lawrence  country,  enabled  to  settle 
the  question  to  his  own  satisfaction,  as  by  his  own 
observations  he  made  sure  of  the  fact  and  dis- 
covered the  explanation  of  it.  He  had  opportunity, 
while  traveling  there,  to  pass  over  some  of  the  sum- 

xxviii 


INTRODUCTION 

mits  west  of  the  river,  which  he  observed  to  exhibit 
the  same  phenomenon  and  which  he  found  to  be 
composed  of  the  same  kind  of  rock  as  the  White 
Mountains.  His  investigations  in  the  Laurentians 
led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  white  appearance 
of  these  and  other  high  mountains  like  them  is  due 
to  the  reflection  of  the  sunlight  from  the  rock  when 
the  atmosphere  is  rare  and  the  distance  is  sufficiently 
great  to  permit  of  only  the  high  bare  portions  being 
seen.  In  producing  this  effect,  he  affirms,  the  color  of 
the  rock  is  of  minor  importance,  the  chief  requisite 
being  that  the  rock  should  be  bare  and  of  a  density 
of  composition  adapted  for  reflecting  the  rays  of 
light.  So  much  for  the  question  as  to  why  the  White 
Mountains  are  "white"  and  have  their  name. 

When  we  come  to  the  perhaps  more  important, 
and  doubtless  more  interesting,  subject  of  Indian 
names  of  the  Mountains,  we  are  again  on  uncertain 
ground.  Several  of  such  designations  of  the  principal 
range  have  come  to  us,  vouched  for  by  various 
authorities.  Belknap  speaks  of  the  name  "Agioco- 
chook,"  which  occurs  in  a  reduced  form  as  "Agio- 
chook,"  as  having  been  applied  to  what  is  now 
known  as  the  "Presidential  Range."  This  name 
Mr.  Drake  found  in  print  as  early  as  1736  in  the 
narrative  ^  of  John  Gyles's  captivity  published  in 
Boston  in  that  year.  It  is  also  recorded  by  School- 
craft, who  says  it  is  plural  in  form. 

As  to  its  meaning,  which  the  Reverend  Edward 

^  "These  White  Hills,  at  the  head  of  the  Penobscot  River,  are  by 
the  Indians  said  to  be  much  higher  than  those  called  Agiockochook, 
above  Saco,"  says  Captain  Gyles. 

xxix 


INTRODUCTION 

Ballard  thought  to  be  "The  Place  of  the  Great 
Spirit  of  the  Forest,"  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull's 
opinion  is  that  the  word  Captain  Gyles  imperfectly 
represented  in  English  syllables  is  Algonquin  for  "at 
the  mountains  on  that  side"  or  "over  yonder."  As 
to  the  fanciful  interpretations,  such  as  that  given 
above,  or  that  of  another  writer,  "The  Place  of  the 
Storm  Spirit,"  Dr.  Trumbull  affirms  that  there  is  no 
element  of  any  Algonquin  word  meaning  "great," 
''spirit,"  "forest,"  "storm,"  or  "abode,"  or  any 
combination  of  the  meaning  of  any  two  of  these 
words,  in  "Agiocochook."  The  shortened  form  of 
this  name,  which  occurs  in  the  early  ballad  on  the 
death  of  Captain  Lovewell,  has  been  adopted  by 
Whittier,  Edna  Dean  Proctor,  and  other  authors  as 
a  poetical  name  for  Mount  Washington. 

Another  Indian  name  was  communicated  to  the 
Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society  by  the  Reverend  Timothy  Alden, 
afterwards  founder  and  president  of  Allegheny  Col- 
lege, in  a  letter  dated  1806,  which  was  published 
in  the  Collections  of  the  Society  in  1814.  "I  have 
lately  been  informed,"  he  says,  "  that  the  White  Hills 
were  called  by  one  of  the  eastern  tribes,  I  cannot 
ascertain  which,  Waumbekketmethna.  I  have  spelt  it, 
as  I  think  all  aboriginal  names  ought  to  be,  as  pro- 
nounced. Waumbekket  signifies  white,  and  methna, 
mountains,  as  I  am  told."  This  name  is  the  only 
Indian  name  for  the  White  Hills  that,  according  to 
Drake,  bears  internal  evidence  of  genuineness.  That 
writer  says  that  it  "easily  resolves  itself  into  the 
Kennebec- Abnaki    waubeghiket-amadinar,    '  white 

XXX 


INTRODUCTION 

greatest  mountain.' "  "It  is  very  probable,  however," 
he  says  further,  "that  this  synthesis  is  a  mere  trans- 
lation, by  an  Indian,  of  the  English  'White  Moun- 
tains.' I  have  never,  myself,  succeeded  in  obtaining 
this  name  from  the  modern  Abnakis."  Schoolcraft, 
commenting  on  "Waumbek,"  says  that  it  is  "a 
word,  which  in  some  of  the  existing  dialects  of  the 
Algonquin,  is  pronounced  Waubik,  that  is.  White 
Rock."  In  the  form  "Waumbek  Methna,"  or  some- 
times still  further  shortened  to  "Waumbek,"  this 
name,  which  has  been  given  the  fanciful  interpreta- 
tion of  "Mountains  with  Snowy  Foreheads,"  or  the 
like,  has  also  been  much  used  by  the  poets.  Would 
that  it  might  have  been  the  geographical  name  also ! 

Still  another  alleged  Indian  appellation  of  the 
Mountains,  which  is  mentioned  by  a  number  of 
writers,  may  be  set  down  here  for  the  sake  of  having 
the  record  complete.  This  is  the  harsh-sounding 
combination  of  words,  "Kan  Ran  Vugarty,"  said  to 
mean  "The  Continued  Likeness  of  a  Gull,"  and 
having,  obviously,  in  common  with  the  others, 
reference  to  the  white  appearance  of  the  summits. 

Among  these  hills  rise  four  great  New  England 
rivers,  the  Connecticut,  the  Merrimac,  the  Andros- 
coggin, and  the  Saco.  As  the  source,  then,  of  these 
very  important  elements  in  the  existence  and  de- 
velopment of  New  England's  industry  and  com- 
merce, the  White  Mountains  have  a  more  than  local 
significance,  all  of  the  States  of  this  section,  saving 
Rhode  Island,  being  thus  directly  affected  by  them. 
As  a  summer  playground  and  region  of  scenic  beauty, 
they  have  acquired  a  reputation  more  than  nation- 

xxxi 


INTRODUCTION 

wide.  The  district,  indeed,  was  the  first  to  receive 
that  rather  often  applied  sobriquet  of  American 
Mountain  regions,  "The  Switzerland  of  America," 
Philip  Carrigain,  once  secretary  of  state  of  New 
Hampshire,  in  his  state  map  ^  of  1816,  bestowing 
that,  in  this  instance  perhaps  somewhat  far-fetched, 
appellative  upon  the  hills  of  his  native  State. 

This  northern  upland,  which  it  is  my  purpose  to 
treat  on  the  historical  side  only,  has  not,  it  must  be 
admitted  at  the  outset,  been  the  theater  of  great 
events.  No  wars  or  battles  have  been  fought  there; 
no  great  political  movements  have  been  initiated  or 
carried  on  there;  indeed,  the  region  is  not  a  political 
entity  and  "White  Mountains"  is  only  a  geographi- 
cal expression.  It  has  not  even  been  to  any  great 
extent  the  scene  of  thrilling  adventures  with  the 
Indians.  Little,  in  fact,  of  a  nature  to  make  the 
region  interesting  historically,  in  the  usual  connota- 
tion of  that  term,  has  occurred  during  the  nearly 
three  centuries  it  has  been  known  to  us.  And  so  the 
materials  of  the  historian  of  the  White  Mountains 
are  meager,  especially  as  compared  with  the  data 
available  to  the  historian  of  a  region  that  has  an 
eventful  history,  such  as,  for  instance,  the  Lake 
George  and  Lake  Champlain  locality,  and  this 
dearth  is  not  altogether  encouraging  to  one  who 
would  fain  have  an  interesting  story  to  tell. 

*  The  text  on  the  side  of  the  map  contained  these  words:  "With 
regard  to  the  face  of  the  country,  its  features  are  striking  and  pic- 
turesque. The  natural  scenery  of  mountains  of  greater  elevation  than 
any  others  [!]  in  the  United  States;  of  lakes,  of  cataracts,  of  vallies 
[sic]  furnishes  a  profusion  of  the  sublime  and  beautiful.  It  may  be 
called  the  Switzerland  of  America." 

xxxii 


INTRODUCTION 

It  must  be,  therefore,  of  peaceful  and  compara- 
tively uneventful  pioneer  life  in  a  district  remote 
from  the  centers  of  population,  industrial  life,  and 
civilization,  and  of  the  unsung  heroisms  of  hardy 
men  in  contending  with  the  forces  of  nature,  that 
the  first  part  of  the  story  will  largely  consist. 

There  will  be  something  of  interest  also,  I  venture 
to  think,  in  such  chronicles  as  I  shall  set  down  of  the 
small  beginnings  of  the  region  as  a  vacation  play- 
ground and  of  its  great  growth  as  such  when  the 
beautiful  scenery  and  health-giving  air  had  become 
known  to  a  nation  in  course  of  time  sufficiently  in- 
creased in  population  and  possessed  of  leisure, 
wealth,  and  facilities  to  travel  and  to  maintain 
summer  resorts. 

Besides  these  main  events  of  exploration,  settle- 
ment, and  development  as  a  district  for  summer 
rest  and  recreation,  there  have  occurred  in  the 
region  from  time  to  time  many  minor  incidents,  as 
to  which,  as  well  as  to  the  matters  just  mentioned, 
I  have  assumed  frequenters  of  the  Mountains  and 
even  occasional  visitors  to  them  may  desire  to  in- 
form themselves.  Acting,  at  any  rate,  on  this  as- 
sumption, I  have  undertaken  in  the  ensuing  pages 
the  pleasant  task  of  culling  out  and  recording  the 
more  important  occurrences.  These  events  and  inci- 
dents, then,  form  the  materials  of  this  chronicle. 


CHRONICLES  OF 
THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 


INDIAN   LEGEND   AND  HISTORY 

Little  can  be  told  of  the  character  and  life  of  the 
Indians  who  inhabited  or  frequented  this  region 
during  the  prehistoric  ages  comprising  the  period 
before  the  coming  of  the  white  man.  Investigators 
have  not  been  able  to  ascertain  much  about  them, 
and  consequently  the  information  that  has  been  ac- 
cumulated as  compared  with  that  gathered  concern- 
ing the  Indians  of  southern  New  England,  who  were, 
after  the  white  man's  advent,  in  close  contact  with 
the  settlements,  is  comparatively  meager  and  in- 
definite. Even  the  names  and  relationships  of  the 
northern  Indians  are  by  no  means  certain. 

That  powerful  tribes  once  lived  in  and  roamed 
over  the  valleys  shadowed  by  these  hills,  not  only 
does  tradition  tell  us,  but  also  remains  bear  witness. 
Of  their  encampments  and  favorite  retreats,  how- 
ever, there  is  lack  of  adequate  knowledge.  By  the 
time  that  the  settlers  had  begun  to  penetrate  to  this 
region  the  aborigines  had  been  so  reduced  by  pes- 
tilences and  wars  that  those  who  were  then  living 
were  probably  but  a  very  small  fraction  of  their 
former  number.  According  to  what  seems  to  be  the 
most  reliable  information,  the  tribes  inhabiting  the 

I 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

foothills  and  intervales  of  the  White  Mountains 
more  especially  were  the  Sokokis  on  the  Saco  and 
the  Arosagunticooks,  or  Anasagunticooks,  on  the 
Androscoggin.  The  former  were  divided  into  nu- 
merous branches,  of  which  the  Ossipees  and  Pequaw- 
kets  (or  Pigwackets)  —  especially  the  latter,  who 
by  some  are  identified  with  the  Sokokis  as  a  whole 
—  were  the  most  prominent.  To  the  south  in  the 
valley  of  the  Merrimac  was  the  country  of  the  Pen- 
nacooks,  under  whose  sachem  were  all  the  clans 
occupying  the  territory  now  constituting  New 
Hampshire,  while  to  the  west  at  the  junction  of 
the  Connecticut  and  Ammonoosuc  Rivers  were  the 
Coosucs,  a  small  band,  probably  a  branch  of  the 
Pennacooks.  These  tribes  all  belonged  to  the  Abnaki 
group  of  the  great  Algonquian  family.  They  were 
savages  of  a  not  very  high  type  of  culture,  who  relied 
for  their  subsistence  mainly  on  the  results  of  their 
hunting  and  fishing,  their  agriculture  being  confined 
to  the  cultivation  of  maize  on  a  limited  scale.  They 
built  conical  houses  or  wigwams  and  lived  in  vil- 
lages, which  were  in  some  cases  inclosed  with  pali- 
sades. Such  remains,  therefore,  as  we  find  of  their 
occupancy  of  the  region  are  of  the  most  primitive 
kind.  On  the  banks  of  the  rivers  and  near  the  ponds 
or  lakes  traces  of  their  encampments  are  frequently 
discovered.  In  some  of  the  intervales  com  hills  ^ 
used  to  be  seen,  and  there  were  also  here  and  there 
evidences  of  the  destruction  of  trees  by  girdling.   In 

^  "The  remains  of  their  fields  are  still  visible  in  many  places; 
these  are  not  extensive,  and  the  hills  which  they  made  about  their 
corn  stalks  were  small."   (Belknap.) 

2 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

Conway,  pipes  and  pieces  of  kettles  made  of  a  soft, 
easily  cut  earthenware  have  often  been  found. 

In  Ossipee,  near  the  lake,  is  a  large  monumental 
mound  about  fifty  feet  in  diameter  and  ten  feet  high, 
from  which  skeletons  buried  with  the  face  down- 
ward, tomahawks,  and  other  relics  have  been  taken, 
and  tomahawks  and  pieces  of  ancient  earthenware 
have  been  found  on  the  surrounding  meadow.  Here 
also  corn  hills  were  once  discernible.  "  In  their  capi- 
tal fishing  places,  particularly  in  great  Ossapy  &  Win- 
ipiseogee  rivers,"  says  Belknap,  "are  the  remains  of 
their  wears,  constructed  with  very  large  stones." 

Within  the  limits  of  the  town  of  Fryeburg,  Maine, 
there  are  many  mounds,  one  of  them  sixty  feet  in 
circuit,  and  various  other  remains  which  indicate  the 
sites  of  Indian  encampments.  Northwest  of  Frye- 
burg village,  in  a  bend  of  the  Saco  and  on  its  east 
bank,  was  situated  Pequawket,  a  large  village  of  the 
Indians  of  that  name.  Hither,  after  the  English 
began  to  occupy  the  seacoast,  retired  the  Sokokis, 
originally  a  large  tribe,  whose  principal  village  had 
been  upon  Indian  Island  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Saco.  Mounds  believed  to  be  of  prehistoric  origin 
are  also  extant  in  Woodstock,  West  Thornton,  and 
other  towns  in  the  region. 

Of  Indian  legend  not  much  has  come  down  to 
us,  and  most  of  that  belongs  to  other  parts  of  the 
Mountains  than  the  main  ranges.  Says  Starr 
King:  — 

The  Indian  names  and  legends  are  shorn  from  the 
upper  mountain  region.  They  have  not  been  caught  for 
our  literature.  The  valleys  are  almost  as  bare  of  them  as 

3 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  White  Mountain  cones  are  of  verdure.  What  a  pity 
it  is  that  our  great  hills 

Piled  to  the  clouds,  —  our  rivers  overhung 

By  forests  which  have  known  no  other  change 

For  ages,  than  the  budding  and  the  fall 

Of  leaves  —  our  valleys  lovelier  than  those 

Which  the  old  poets  sang  of  —  should  but  figure 

On  the  apocryphal  chart  of  speculation 

As  pastures,  wood-lots,  mill-sites,  with  the  privileges, 

Rights  and  appurtenances,  which  make  up 

A  Yankee  Paradise  —  unsung,  unknown 

To  beautiful  tradition ;  even  their  names 

Whose  melody  yet  lingers  like  the  last 

Vibration  of  the  red  man's  requiem, 

Exchanged  for  syllables  significant 

Of  cotton  mill  and  rail-car! 

We  can  scarcely  find  a  settler  who  can  tell  any  story 
learned  in  childhood  of  Indian  bravery,  suffering,  cruelty, 
or  love. 

Such  a  region  in  Europe  would  have  a  world  of 
tradition  and  mythology  associated  with  it  —  wit- 
ness the  wealth  of  legend  possessed  by  the  low  hills 
of  the  Rhine  Valley  or  by  the  Scottish  Border. 

The  chief  legends  worthy  of  recording,  of  the  few 
that  there  are,  center  about  the  names  of  the  In- 
dian chiefs  Passaconaway  and  Chocorua.  Of  the 
former,  a  great  New  Hampshire  chieftain,  whose 
name  means  Child  of  the  Bear  and  who  was  long  the 
head  of  the  Pennacook  Confederation,  his  leader- 
ship probably  antedating  the  landing  of  the  Pil- 
grims, Indian  tradition  has  it  that  he  was  carried 
to  Mount  Washington  in  a  sleigh  drawn  by  wolves, 
whence  he  rose  toward  Heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire, 
like  Elijah.  This  legend  of  his  apotheosis  suggested 

4 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

to  Mr.  Sweetser  the  mysterious  story  of  St.  Aspin- 
quid,  an  Indian  sage,  who,  it  has  been  handed  down, 
was  converted  to  Christianity  in  1628  and  preached 
the  Gospel  widely  for  forty  years.  His  death  oc- 
curred more  than  fifty  years  later  and  his  funeral 
on  Mount  Agamenticus  in  York  County,  Maine,  is 
said  to  have  been  attended  by  many  sachems  and  to 
have  been  marked  by  a  great  hunting  feast.  One 
antiquary  believes  Passaconaway  and  St.  Aspin- 
quid,  because  of  the  correspondences  between  their 
ages  and  reputations,  to  be  the  same  person,  and  he 
advances  the  theory  that  Passaconaway  retired  to 
Mount  Agamenticus  during  King  Philip's  War,  re- 
ceived the  other  name  from  the  seashore  Indians, 
and  died  there  some  years  afterward. 

Passaconaway's  life  story  is  an  interesting  one 
and  his  character  was  of  a  remarkably  high  order. 
He  became  known  to  the  white  men  soon  after  their 
coming,  for  Captain  Levett  reported  having  seen 
him  in  1623.  His  confederation,  which  is  estimated 
to  have  had  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century  several  thousand  warriors,  had,  in  less  than 
twenty  years,  been  almost  exterminated  by  famine, 
pestilence,  and  pitiless  warfare  with  other  Indians. 
In  1629,  Passaconaway  and  his  subchiefs  granted  a 
considerable  tract  of  land  between  the  Piscataqua 
and  Merrimac  Rivers  to  the  banished  Antinomian, 
Rev.  John  Wheelwright,  and  others  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Colony,  in  return  for  what  the  In- 
dians deemed  a  valuable  consideration  in  "coats, 
shirts,  and  kettles."  Three  years  later,  the  sachem 
dispatched  to  Boston  an  Indian  who  had  killed  an 

5 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

English  trader  named  Jenkins  while  the  latter  was 
asleep  in  a  wigwam.  When,  in  1642,  Massachusetts 
sent  a  force  of  forty  armed  men  to  disarm  Passa- 
conaway,  he  voluntarily  delivered  up  his  guns,  after 
the  General  Court  had  sent  an  apology  to  him  for 
some  unwarranted  proceedings  on  the  part  of  the 
white  men,  which  he,  as  the  authorities  to  their 
credit  admitted,  rightfully  resented. 

Some  two  or  three  years  later,  Passaconaway  and 
his  sons  put  themselves,  their  people,  and  their 
lands  under  the  jurisdiction  and  protection  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  from  this  time  he  was  nominally  a 
sort  of  Puritan  magistrate,  administering  the  colonial 
laws  upon  his  subjects.  John  Eliot,  the  apostle  to 
the  Indians,  visited  the  chieftain  in  1647,  and  by  his 
preaching  so  impressed  him  and  his  sons  that  the 
clergyman  was  entreated  to  live  with  them  as  their 
teacher.  Eliot  probably  converted  Passaconaway 
about  this  time. 

In  1660,  the  great  sachem,  overcome  with  the 
burden  of  his  years  and  weary  of  honors,  abdicated 
his  chieftainship  at  a  solemn  assembly  of  the  moun- 
tain and  river  Indians  held  at  Pawtucket  Falls 
(Lowell).  His  farewell  address  was  heard  by  two  or 
three  Englishmen,  who  reported  it  to  be  a  fine  piece 
of  oratory.  Various  forms  ^  of  it  have  come  down  to 

^  There  is  one  version  in  Hubbard's  Indian  Wars,  another  in 
Bouton's  History  of  Concord,  and  another  in  Barstow's  History  of 
New  Hampshire.  In  view  of  these,  Little,  in  his  History  of  Warren, 
facetiously  remarks,  "We  come  to  the  probably  correct  conclusion 
that  Passaconaway  said  something  very  pretty  and  exceedingly 
eloquent  sometime."  One  paragraph  of  the  Potter  version  I  have 
omitted. 

6 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

us.  A  fanciful  version,  given  by  Hon.  Chandler  E. 
Potter  in  his  "History  of  Manchester,"  runs  as 
follows:  — 

Hearken  to  the  words  of  your  father.  I  am  an  old  oak, 
that  has  withstood  the  storm  of  more  than  an  hundred 
winters.  Leaves  and  branches  have  been  stripped  from 
me  by  the  winds  and  frosts  —  my  eyes  are  dim  —  my 
limbs  totter  —  I  must  soon  fall!  But  when  young  and 
sturdy,  when  my  bow  no  young  man  of  the  Pennacooks 
could  bend  it  —  when  my  arrows  would  pierce  a  deer  at 
an  hundred  yards  —  and  I  could  bury  my  hatchet  in  a 
sapling  to  the  eye  —  no  wigwam  had  so  many  furs  — 
no  pole  so  many  scalp  locks,  as  Passaconaway's.  Then 
I  delighted  in  war.  The  whoop  of  the  Pennacooks  was 
heard  on  the  Mohawk  —  and  no  voice  so  loud  as  Pas- 
saconaway's. The  scalps  upon  the  pole  of  my  wigwam 
told  the  story  of  Mohawk  suffering.  .  .  . 

The  oak  will  soon  break  before  the  whirlwind  —  it 
shivers  and  shakes  even  now;  soon  its  trunk  will  be  pros- 
trate —  the  ant  and  the  worm  will  sport  upon  it !  Then 
think,  my  children,  of  what  I  say;  I  commune  with  the 
Great  Spirit.  He  whispers  me  now  —  "Tell  your  peo- 
ple. Peace,  Peace,  is  the  only  hope  of  your  race.  I  have 
given  fire  and  thunder  to  the  pale  faces  for  weapons  —  I 
have  made  them  plentier  than  the  leaves  of  the  forest, 
and  still  shall  they  increase!  These  meadows  they  shall 
turn  with  the  plow  —  these  forests  shall  fall  by  the  axe  — 
the  pale  faces  shall  live  upon  your  hunting  grounds,  and 
make  their  villages  upon  your  fishing  places !  "  The  Great 
Spirit  says  this,  and  it  must  be  so !  We  are  few  and  power- 
less before  them !  We  must  bend  before  the  storm !  The 
wind  blows  hard!  The  old  oak  trembles!  Its  branches 
are  gone!  Its  sap  is  frozen!  It  bends!  It  falls!  Peace, 
Peace,  with  the  white  man  —  is  the  command  of  the 
Great  Spirit  —  and  the  wish  —  the  last  wish  —  of  Pas- 
saconaway. 

7 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

After  his  abdication,  the  province  of  Massachu- 
setts granted  him  a  tract  of  land  in  Litchfield,  where 
he  lived  for  a  time.  Eliot  and  General  Gookin  saw 
him  when  he  was  in  his  one-hundred-and-twentieth 
year.  When  and  how  he  died  are  unknown;  the 
tradition  of  his  departure  from  earth  has  been  al- 
ready given. 

Many  were  the  wild  and  fascinating  stories  about 
this  great  chief  current  among  the  Indians  and  the 
colonists.  He  seems  to  have  been  in  early  life  a 
great  warrior  and  later  to  have  become  a  powwow, 
a  sort  of  priest  and  necromancer  combined.  When 
the  settlers  came  to  Massachusetts,  he  used  all  his 
magic  arts  against  them,  but  with  such  lack  of  suc- 
cess that  he  became  convinced  that  they  were  pro- 
tected by  the  Great  Spirit,  and  so  he  avoided  war- 
fare with  them.  To  the  Puritans  his  actions  in  this 
instance  suggested  themselves  as  a  parallel  to  those 
of  a  character  in  their  favorite  book,  and  one  of  the 
fathers  gave  him  accordingly  the  name  of  the  In- 
dian Balaam.  Some  of  the  powers  attributed  to  him 
are  thus  quaintly  described  in  William  Wood's  "New 
England's  Prospect"  (1634):  — 

He  can  make  the  water  burne,  the  rocks  move,  the 
trees  dance,  metamorphise  himself  into  a  flaming  man. 
Hee  will  do  more;  for  in  winter,  when  there  are  no  green 
leaves  to  be  got,  he  will  burne  an  old  one  to  ashes,  and 
putting  those  into  the  water,  produce  a  new  green  leaf, 
which  you  shall  not  only  see,  but  substantially  handle 
and  Carrie  away;  and  make  of  a  dead  snake's  skin  a  living 
snake,  both  to  be  seen,  felt,  and  heard.  This  I  write  but 
upon  the  report  of  the  Indians,  who  confidently  affirm 
stranger  things. 

8 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

Passaconaway's  son  Wonnalancet  succeeded  him 
as  chief.  He  is  said  to  have  been  "a  sober  and  grave 
person,  of  years  between  fifty  and  sixty,"  and  to 
have  been  "always  loving  and  friendly  to  the  Eng- 
lish." He  was  converted  to  Christianity  by  the 
Apostle  Eliot  and  lived  a  noble  life,  restraining  his 
warriors  from  attacking  the  colonists,  even  during 
King  Philip's  War.  Finding  it  impossible,  at  a  later 
day,  to  prevent  his  people  from  engaging  in  open 
hostilities,  he  gave  up  the  chieftaincy  and  with  a 
few  families  who  adhered  to  him,  sought  retreat  at 
St.  Francis  ^  in  Canada.  He  returned  to  the  Merri- 
mac  valley  in  1696,  but  after  a  short  time  finally 
retired  to  St.  Francis,  where  he  died. 

His  successor  as  chieftain,  after  his  abdication  in 
1685,  was  his  nephew,  Passaconaway's  "grant- 
son,"  Kancamagus.  This  resolute  warrior  made 
several  attempts  to  retain  the  friendship  of  the 
colonists,  as  is  evident  from  his  letters  to  Governor 
Crandall,  but  was  unsuccessful  and  finally  yielded, 
after  many  slights  and  much  ill-treatment,  to  the 
solicitations  of  the  warlike  and  patriotic  party  in 
the  confederation.  He  organized  and  led  the  terri- 
ble attack  on  Dover  in  1689,  which  was  the  death- 
throe  of  the  Pennacooks.  He  was  present  at  the 
signing  of  the  truce  of  Sagadahoc,  but  after  that 
disappears  from  history.  He  may  have  retired  with 
the  remainder  of  his  people  to  St.  Francis.  Potter 
thus  characterizes  him :  — 

*  The  Indian  town  of  St.  Francois  de  Sales,  near  Becancour,  op- 
posite Three  Rivers  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  which  had  from  the  earlk^ 
times  been  inhabited  by  a  clan  of  the  Abnakis. 

9 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Kancamagus  was  a  brave  and  politic  chief,  and  in  view 
of  what  he  accomplished  at  the  head  of  a  mere  remnant 
of  a  once  powerful  tribe,  it  may  be  considered  a  most  for- 
tunate circumstance  for  the  English  colonists,  that  he  was 
not  at  the  head  of  the  tribe  at  an  earlier  period,  before  it 
had  been  shorn  of  its  strength,  during  the  old  age  of  Pas- 
saconaway,  and  the  peaceful  and  inactive  reign  of  Won- 
nalancet.  And  even  could  Kancamagus  have  succeeded 
to  the  sagamonship  ten  years  earlier  than  he  did,  so  that 
his  acknowledged  abilities  for  counsel  and  war  could 
have  been  united  with  those  of  Philip,  history  might 
have  chronicled  another  story  than  the  inglorious  death 
of  the  sagamon  of  Mount  Hope  in  the  swamp  of  Pokano- 
ket. 

After  the  powerful  confederacy  of  the  Pennacooks 
was  broken  up,  the  northern  tribes  remained  in  their 
ancestral  home  a  few  years  longer,  but  were  soon 
nearly  annihilated  by  expeditions  from  the  New 
England  towns,  the  remnant  finally  migrating  to 
Canada. 

Perhaps  the  most  celebrated  Indian  name  asso- 
ciated with  White  Mountain  legend  is  that  of  the 
chieftain  Chocorua,  whose  name  has  been  attached 
to  the  easternmost  peak  ^  of  the  Sandwich  Range,  a 
peak  which  Sweetser  says  "is  probably  the  most 
picturesque  and  beautiful  of  the  mountains  of  New 
England."  Near  its  summit  Chocorua  was  killed  by 
white  men. 

One  form  of  the  legend  concerning  this  Indian  was 
narrated  to  Mr.  Sweetser  by  an  old  inhabitant  of 

^  The  mountain  was  known  and  mapped  as  Chocorua  decades 
before  the  legend  ever  appeared  in  print.  On  Belknap's  map  of  New 
Hampshire,  issued  with  the  second  volume  of  his  history,  in  1791, 
Chocorua  appears,  being  the  only  mountain  of  the  Sandwich  Range 
to  be  located  or  named. 

10 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

Tamworth,  who  had  written  it  down  many  years 
before  as  he  had  received  it  from  his  ancestors.  The 
story  runs  as  follows:  — 

When  the  Pequawket  Indians  retreated  to  Canada, 
after  Lovewell's  battle  [1725],  Chocorua  refused  to  leave 
the  ancient  home  of  his  people  and  the  graves  of  his  fore- 
fathers. He  remained  behind,  and  was  friendly  to  the  in- 
coming white  settlers,  and  especially  with  one  Campbell, 
who  lived  near  what  is  now  Tamworth.  He  had  a  son, 
in  whom  all  his  hopes  and  love  were  centered.  On  one 
occasion  he  was  obliged  to  go  to  Canada  to  consult  with 
his  people  at  St.  Francis,  and,  wishing  to  spare  his  son 
the  labors  of  the  long  journey,  he  left  him  with  Campbell 
until  his  return.  The  boy  was  welcomed  to  the  hut  of 
the  pioneer,  and  tenderly  cared  for.  One  day,  however, 
he  found  a  small  bottle  of  poison,  which  had  been  pre- 
pared for  a  mischievous  fox,  and,  with  the  unsuspecting 
curiosity  of  the  Indian,  he  drank  a  portion  of  it.  Cho- 
corua returned  only  to  find  his  boy  dead  and  buried.  The 
improbable  story  of  his  fatality  failed  to  satisfy  the  heart- 
broken chief,  and  his  spirit  demanded  vengeance.  Camp- 
bell went  home  from  the  fields  one  day,  and  saw  the  dead 
and  mangled  bodies  of  his  wife  and  children  on  the  floor 
of  the  hut.  He  tracked  Chocorua  and  found  him  on  the 
crest  of  the  mountain,  and  shot  him  down,  while  the 
dying  Indian  invoked  curses  on  the  white  men. 

In  another  form  of  the  legend,^  Campbell  was  an 
active  partisan  of  Cromwell,  who,  on  the  restoration 
of  the  Stuarts,  fled  to  America  with  his  beautiful 
and  high-born  wife  and  settled  in  this  remote  wilder- 
ness.  The  son  of  Chocorua,  who  was  then  prophet 

^  This  is  the  form  adopted  by  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child  in  her  story 
of  "Chocorua's  Curse,"  printed  in  the  1830  issue  of  The  Token,  art 
annual  published  at  Boston.  The  story  is  accompanied  by  a  steel 
engraving,  by  George  W.  Hatch,  of  Thomas  Cole's  painting  of 
"The  Death  of  Chocorua." 

II 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  the  powerful  Pequawkets,  was  a  frequent  visitor 
at  Campbell's  house  and  there  met  his  death  by 
accidental  poisoning.  The  murder  of  the  family  and 
the  death  of  the  chief  on  the  mountain  are  related 
to  have  occurred  also  substantially  as  narrated  in 
the  other  form  of  the  story. 

Another  account,  which  is  probably  nearer  the 
truth,  makes  Chocorua  an  inoffensive  Indian,  a 
friend  of  the  whites,  who  was  shot  by  a  party  of 
hunters,  at  a  time  when  Massachusetts  was,  during 
a  campaign  against  the  Indians,  offering  a  bounty 
of  £ioo  for  every  scalp  brought  to  Boston.^ 

Legend  represents  the  chieftain  as  raising  himself 
upon  his  hands,  when  wounded  to  death  by  the 
bullet  of  Campbell,  on  the  precipice  of  the  moun- 
tain which  has  received  his  name,  to  utter  an 
anathema  upon  his  enemies,  which  Mrs.  Child  has 
put  into  this  form:  — 

A  curse  upon  ye,  white  men!  May  the  Great  Spirit 
curse  ye  when  he  speaks  in  the  clouds,  and  his  words  are 
fire !  Chocorua  had  a  son  —  and  ye  killed  him  while  the 
sky  looked  bright!  Lightning  blast  your  crops!  Wind 
and  fire  destroy  your  dwellings !  The  Evil  Spirit  breathe 
death  upon  your  cattle !  Your  graves  lie  in  the  war  path 
of  the  Indian!  Panthers  howl,  and  wolves  fatten  over 
your  bones !  Chocorua  goes  to  the  Great  Spirit  —  his 
curse  stays  with  the  white  man ! 

Although  tradition  would  have  it  that  the  curse 
was  effectual,  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  towns  in  this 

•  ^  The  Chocorua  legend  has  been  the  subject  of  a  number  of  poems, 
including  a  juvenile  production  of  Longfellow's,  mentioned  elsewhere, 
a  spirited  lyric  of  forty  lines  by  Charles  J.  Fox,  and  a  280-line  poem 
by  Mrs.  V.  G.  Ranney. 

12 


<   I- 

o    « 

u   g 


-<   a, 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

vicinity  were  never  molested  by  Indians,  pestilence, 
or  other  severe  troubles.  Even  such  a  calamity  as 
the  continued  dying  of  cattle  in  the  town  of  Albany, 
which  was  attributed  to  Chocorua's  curse,  was 
found  after  many  years  to  be  due  to  a  natural 
cause,  the  presence  of  muriate  of  lime  in  the  water 
they  drank. 

h  A  fanciful  legend  purporting  to  give  the  Indians* 
idea  of  the  origin  of  the  White  Mountains,  or,  rather, 
of  the  formation  of  the  lofty  Agiocochook,  is  thus  set 
down  in  Spaulding  and  in  Willey:  — 

Cold  storms  were  in  the  northern  wilderness,  and  a  lone 
red  hunter  wandered  without  food,  chilled  by  the  frozen 
wind.  He  lost  his  strength  and  could  find  no  game;  and 
the  dark  cloud  that  covered  his  life-path  made  him  weary 
of  wandering.  He  fell  down  upon  the  snow,  and  a  dream 
carried  him  to  a  wide,  happy  valley,  filled  with  musical 
streams,  where  singing  birds  and  game  were  plenty.  His 
spirit  cried  aloud  for  joy;  and  the  "Great  Master  of  Life" 
waked  him  from  his  sleep,  gave  him  a  dry  coal  and  a 
flint-pointed  spear,  telling  him  that  by  the  shore  of  the 
lake  he  might  live,  and  find  fish  with  his  spear,  and  fire 
from  his  dry  coal.  One  night,  when  he  had  laid  down  his 
coal,  and  seen  a  warm  fire  spring  up  therefrom,  with  a 
blinding  smoke,  a  loud  voice  came  out  of  the  flame,  and 
a  great  noise,  like  thunder,  filled  the  air;  and  there  rose 
up  a  vast  pile  of  broken  rocks.  Out  of  the  cloud  resting 
upon  the  top  came  numerous  streams,  dancing  down, 
foaming  cold;  and  the  voice  spake  to  the  astonished  red 
hunter,  saying,  "Here  the  Great  Spirit  will  dwell,  and 
watch  over  his  favorite  children.'* 

The  Indians  who  lived  in  the  valleys  of  this  region 
looked  with  awe  upon  the  Mountains,  or  at  least, 
the  upper  parts  of  the  ranges.  By  them  the  highest 

13 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

summits,  cloud-capped  often  in  all  seasons  or  daz- 
zlingly  white  in  winter,  were  thought  to  be  the 
abodes  of  superior  beings,  who  were  invisible  but 
who  revealed  their  presence  by  the  appalling  tem- 
pests and  by  the  deafening  noises  which  we  now 
know  to  be  due  to  slides  and  falling  rocks,  and  the 
ascent  of  the  peaks  was,  therefore,  regarded  as  not 
only  perilous  or  impossible  but  sacrilegious.  The 
terrible  thunder  and  the  blinding  lightning  seemed 
to  them  the  voice  of  the  Supreme  Being  and  the 
sign  of  his  wrath  and  omnipotence. 

A  deluge  tradition  similar  to  that  held  by  so  many 
savage  tribes  was  current  among  them.  A  quaint 
account  of  this  legend  is  given  in  Josselyn's  "Ac- 
count of  Two  Voyages  to  New  England":  — 

Ask  them  whither  they  go  when  they  dye,  they  will 
tell  you  pointing  with  their  finger  to  Heaven  beyond  the 
white  mountains,  and  do  hint  at  Noah's  Floud,  as  may  be 
conceived  by  a  story  they  have  received  from  Father  to 
Son,  time  out  of  mind,  that  a  great  while  agon  their 
Countrey  was  drowned,  and  all  the  People  and  other 
Creatures  in  it,  only  one  Powaw  and  his  Webb  foreseeing 
the  Floud  fled  to  the  white  mountains  carrying  a  hare 
along  with  them  and  so  escaped ;  after  a  while  the  Powaw 
sent  the  Hare  away,  who  not  returning  emboldned  there- 
by they  descended,  and  lived  many  years  after,  and  had 
many  Children,  from  whom  the  Countrie  was  filled  again 
with  Indians. 

Another  tradition  of  the  early  days  is  connected 
with  the  Giant's  Grave,  a  mound  of  river  gravel  or 
sand  on  which  was  situated  the  first  public  house  in 
the  Fabyan  region.  It  was  affirmed  that  an  Indian 
maniac  once  stood  here  and,  waving  a  burning  pitch- 

14 


INDIAN  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY 

pine  torch  kindled  at  a  tree  struck  by  lightning  an 
instant  before,  cried  out  this  prophecy,  "No  pale- 
face shall  take  deep  root  here ;  this  the  Great  Spirit 
whispered  in  my  ear."  Two  inns  on  this  site  have 
been  burned  and  considerable  damage  has  been  done 
by  freshets.  These  facts  very  likely  have  given  rise 
to  the  tradition. 

One  of  the  wildest  and  most  beautiful  of  the  In- 
dian legends  connected  with  the  Crystal  Hills  is 
that  of  the  mystery  of  the  Great  Carbuncle,  which 
Hawthorne  has  immortalized  in  a  characteristic 
twice-told  tale,  bearing  this  title  and  introducing 
eight  adventurers  of  various  degrees,  conditions, 
and  descriptions  as  seekers  for  the  marvelous  stone. 

There  are  several  forms  of  the  tradition,^  which 
was  acquired  from  the  aborigines  by  some  of  the 
early  explorers  and  which  was  reported  by  them  on 
their  return  to  the  settlements,  a  few  even  going  so 
far  as  solemnly  to  afhrm  having  seen  the  wondrous 
object.  According  to  a  generally  received  form  of 
the  legend,  somewhere  in  the  glen  of  the  Dry,  or 
Mount  Washington,  River,,  a  tributary  of  the  Saco 
which  joins  the  latter  nearly  opposite  the  Franken- 
stein CliflF,  was  hidden,  under  a  shelving  rock,  a 
glorious  carbuncle.  This  gem,  it  was  declared,  had 
been  placed  there  by  the  Indians,  who  killed  one  of 
their  number  so  that  an  evil  spirit  might  haunt  the 

^  Says  the  matter-of-fact  historian  Belknap  of  this  fancy:  "From 
them  [the  Indians],  and  the  captives  whom  they  sometimes  led  to 
Canada  through  the  passes  of  these  mountains,  many  fictions  have 
been  propagated,  which  have  given  rise  to  marvelous  and  incredible 
stories;  particularly,  it  has  been  reported,  that  at  immense  and  in- 
accessible heights,  there  have  been  seen  carbuncles,  which  are  sup- 
posed to  appear  luminous  in  the  night." 

15 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

place.  The  great  stone  ever  and  anon  startled  the 
rangers  in  their  lonely  night  camps  or  the  farmers  in 
the  log  houses  in  the  Saco  lowlands  by  flashing  its 
glittering  light  far  out  over  the  country.  Led  by  the 
reports  of  the  gem's  existence  and  marvelous  bril- 
liancy, several  parties  of  adventurers  are  said  to 
have  gone  in  quest  of  it,  hoping  in  some  way  to  ob- 
tain fabulous  riches  as  the  reward  of  their  search. 
One  expedition,  it  is  recorded,  even  took  along  "a 
good  man  to  lay  the  evil  spirit,"  but  all  got  nothing 
for  their  arduous  toil  but  sore  bruises  and  bitter 
disappointment. 

There  is  a  further  tradition  that  one  old  Indian 
pronounced  a  curse  upon  the  pale-faced  seekers, 
and,  as  his  dying  wish,  prayed  that  the  Great  Spirit 
by  a  black  storm  of  fire  and  thunder  would  rend  the 
cliff,  roll  the  carbuncle  down  to  the  valley,  and  bury 
it  deeply  under  the  ruins  of  rocks  and  trees.  So 
firm  and  persistent  became  belief  in  this  mysterious 
jewel's  existence  that,  even  after  the  Revolution,  as 
we  are  informed  by  the  author  of  an  early  history  of 
Maine,  it  had  not  been  entirely  given  up  by  dwellers 
in  the  region. 


II 

EARLY  EXPLORERS 

Plainly  visible  from  the  sea  as  the  summits  of 
the  White  Mountains  are  in  clear  weather,  they 
must  have  been  seen  by  a  number  of  the  early  ex- 
plorers of  northeastern  America  when  cruising  along 
the  coast.  Who  was  the  first  European  to  behold 
them  cannot  be  told,  but  the  Florentine  navigator 
Verrazano  is  the  first,  it  appears,  who  speaks  of 
having  seen  them.  In  the  year  1524,  as  he  was  skirt- 
ing the  coast  of  the  future  New  England,  he  visited 
the  site  of  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire.  His  record 
of  the  progress  of  his  voyage  at  this  point  says,  "We 
departed  from  thence  keeping  our  course  Northeast 
along  the  coast,  which  we  found  more  pleasant 
champion  and  without  woods,  with  high  mountains 
within  the  land."  * 

The  Mountains  appear,  it  is  probable,  vaguely  lo- 

^  Letter  of  Giovanni  da  Verrazano  to  the  King  of  France,  July  8, 
1524,  of  which  three  copies  exist.  The  version  given  above  is  from 
the  translation  made  for  Hakluyt's  Voyages,  in  1583,  of  the  copy 
printed  by  Ramusio  in  1556.  A  second  copy  was  found  in  the  Strozzi 
Library  in  Florence.  A  third  copy,  which  has  the  distinction  of  being 
contemporaneous,  is  now  in  Rome  and  was  first  printed  in  Italy  in 
1909.  It  was  translated  into  English  by  Dr.  Edward  Hagaman  Hall, 
Secretary  of  the  American  Scenic  and  Historic  Preservation  Society, 
and  was  published  in  the  Report  of  that  society  for  19 10.  Our  passage 
reads  thus  in  Dr.  Hall's  translation:  "Wedeparted,  skirting  the  coast 
between  east  and  north,  which  we  found  very  beautiful,  open  and  bare 
of  forests,  with  high  mountains  back  inland,  growing  smaller  toward 
the  shore  of  the  sea." 

17 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

cated,  on  a  number  of  early  maps.  They  are  doubt- 
less the  montanas  of  Ribero's  map  of  the  Polus 
Mundi  Arcticus  (1529).  They  are  shown  as  Les 
Montaignes  on  a  map  of  the  world  painted  on  parch- 
ment by  the  Bishop  of  Viseu  in  1542  under  the  orders 
of  Francis  I,  and  they  appear  also  in  Nicolo  del 
Dolfinato's  map  in  the  "Navigationi  del  Mondo 
Nuovo,"  published  at  Venice  in  1560.  Probably  the 
Montes  S.  Johannis  of  Michael  Lok's  map  (1582) 
are  the  White  Mountains.  They  are  drawn  on  the 
"Mappemonde"  of  Mercator,  published  at  Duis- 
burg  in  1569,  as  lying  west  of  the  great  city  of 
Norumbega.  On  Sebastian  Cabot's  map  of  the 
world,  drawn  in  1544,  montagnas  is  found  in  the  lo- 
cation, roughly,  of  this  group.  John  Foster's  map  of 
New  England,  1677,  is  the  first  in  which  the  name 
of  "White  Hills"  appears.^  In  Holland's  map  of 
1784,  which  embodies  the  results  of  a  survey  made 
at  public  expense  by  Captain  Samuel  Holland  in 
I773~74  and  which  is  entitled,  "A  Topographical 
Map  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,"  the  names  of 
individual  peaks  are  given  for  the  first  time.  Philip 
Carrigain,  whose  name  is  commemorated  by  that 
striking  mountain  of  bold  and  massive  form,  which 
stands  almost  exactly  in  the  center  of  the  White 
Mountain  region,  published  a  map  of  New  Hamp- 
shire in  1 81 6.  This  well-known  work  was  compiled 
by  him  from  town  surveys  which  the  legislatures  of 
1803  and  1805  had  ordered  and  which  had  been 

*  This  map  was  printed  in  the  Reverend  William  Hubbard's  Nar- 
rative of  the  Troubles  with  the  Indians  in  New  England.  In  the  first 
impression  the  name  was  printed  "Wine  Hills,"  obviously  a  misprint, 
but  the  map  was  recut  the  same  year  with  the  correct  name  substituted. 

18 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

returned  to  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  state,  a 
position  held  by  Carrigain  in  the  years  just  named. 
The  first  carefully  prepared  map  of  the  Mountains 
was  that  published  by  Professor  G.  P.  Bond  of 
Harvard  College  in  1853.  It  was  made  from  original 
triangulations. 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  exploration.  The 
great  French  explorer  and  founder  of  Canada, 
Samuel  de  Champlain,  evidently  descried  these 
mountains  during  his  expedition  of  1605,  for  in  his 
account  of  his  voyage  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  when 
he  must  have  reached  the  vicinity  of  Portland,  he 
made  this  entry  in  his  journal;  "From  here  large 
mountains  are  seen  to  the  west,  in  which  is  the 
dwelling  place  of  a  savage  captain  called  Aneda, 
who  encamps  near  the  river  Quinibequy."  * 

The  Englishman  Christopher  Levett,  the  pioneer 
colonist  in  Casco  Bay,  in  his  account  of  his  voyage 
to  New  England  of  1623  and  1624,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  1628,  has  this  reference  to  the  White 
Mountains:  "This  River  [undoubtedly  the  Saco],  as 
I  am  told  by  the  Salvages,  commeth  from  a  great 
mountain  called  the  Christall  hill,  being  as  they  say 
100  miles  in  the  Country,  yet  it  is  to  be  scene  at  the 
sea  side,  and  there  is  no  ship  arives  in  New  England, 
either  to  the  West  so  farre  as  Cape  Cod,  or  to  the 
East  so  farre  as  Monhiggen,  but  they  see  this  moun- 
taine  the  first  land,  if  the  weather  be  cleere."  ^ 

*  The  Kennebec. 

2  Apparently  the  voyagers  of  those  early  days  were  blessed  with 
exceptionally  good  eyesight.  President  Dwight  states  that  the  sailors 
of  his  day  averred  that  they  could  see  Mount  Washington  from  a 
point  at  sea  165  miles  from  it. 

19 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

It  was  not  until  some  years  after  the  coast  was 
settled  that  any  one  could  venture  so  far  away  from 
the  security  and  supplies  of  the  settlements  as  these 
remote  hills,  even  for  the  purpose  of  exploration. 
But  at  length  adventurous  spirits  undertook  this 
arduous  and  dangerous  exploit.  Darby  Field,  whom 
recent  researches  recorded  by  Warren  W.  Hart  in 
Appalachia  show  to  have  been  probably  a  native 
of  Boston,  England,  and  therefore  not  of  the  na- 
tionality attributed  to  him  in  Winthrop's  "Journal," 
is  generally  credited  with  being  the  first  European 
to  visit  and  explore  the  White  Mountains. 

It  was  in  June,  1642,^  that  he  made  the  first  and 
probably  also  the  second  of  his  expeditions  to  this 
region,  accounts  of  which  are  thus  set  down  by 
Winthrop :  — 

One  Darby  Field,  an  Irishman,  living  about  Pascata- 
quack,^  being  accompanied  with  two  Indians,  went  to  the 
top  of  the  white  hill.  He  made  his  journey  in  18  days. 
His  relation  —  at  his  return  was,  that  it  was  about  one 
hundred  miles  from  Saco,  that  after  40  miles  travel  he  did, 
for  the  most  part,  ascend,  and  within  10  miles  of  the  top 
was  neither  tree  nor  grass,  but  low  savins,  which  they 
went  upon  the  top  of  sometimes,  but  a  continual  ascent 
upon  rocks,  on  a  ridge  between  two  valleys  filled  with 
snow,  out  of  which  came  two  branches  of  the  Saco  River, 
which  meet  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  where  was  an  Indian 
town  of  some  200  people.   Some  of  them  accompanied 

*  "1642,  (4)  [i.  e.,  fourth  month,  or  June].  The  first  discovery  of 
the  great  mountaine  (called  the  Christall  Hills)  to  the  N.  W.  by 
Darby  Field."  Quoted  from  the  Reverend  Samuel  Danforth's  Al- 
manac for  1647,  in  Belknap  and  elsewhere. 

*  Pascataquack  appears  to  have  been  a  general  name  for  the  region 
along  the  Piscataqua  River.  Field  was  a  resident  of  Exeter  at  this 
time. 

20 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

him  within  8  miles  of  the  top,  but  durst  go  no  further, 
telling  him  that  no  Indian  ever  dared  go  higher,  and  that 
he  would  die  if  he  went.  So  they  staid  there  till  his  return, 
but  his  two  Indians  took  courage  by  his  example  and  went 
with  him.  They  went  divers  times  through  the  thick 
clouds  for  a  good  space,  and  within  4  miles  of  the  top 
they  had  no  clouds,  but  very  cold.  By  the  way,  among 
the  rocks,  there  were  two  ponds,  one  a  blackish  water  and 
the  other  reddish.  The  top  of  all  was  plain  about  60  feet 
square.  On  the  north  side  there  was  such  a  precipice,  as 
they  could  scarcely  discern  to  the  bottom.  They  had 
neither  cloud  nor  wind  on  the  top,  and  moderate  heat. 
All  the  country  about  him  seemed  a  level,  except  here 
and  there  a  hill  rising  above  the  rest,  but  far  beneath 
them.  He  saw  to  the  north  a  great  water  which  he  judged 
to  be  100  miles  broad,  but  could  see  no  land  beyond  it. 
The  sea  by  Saco  seemed  as  if  it  had  been  within  20  miles. 
He  saw  also  a  sea  to  the  eastward,  which  he  judged  to  be 
the  Gulf  of  Canada :  He  saw  some  great  waters  in  parts 
to  the  westward  which  he  judged  to  be  the  great  lake 
which  Canada  River  comes  out  of.  He  found  there  much 
Muscovy  glass,  they  could  rive  out  pieces  of  40  feet  long 
and  7  or  8  broad.  When  he  came  back  to  the  Indians,  he 
found  them  drying  themselves  by  the  fire,  for  they  had 
had  a  great  tempest  of  wind  and  rain.  About  a  month 
after  he  went  again,  with  five  or  six  of  his  company,  then 
they  had  some  wind  on  the  top,  and  some  clouds  above 
them  which  hid  the  sun.  They  brought  some  stones 
which  they  supposed  had  been  diamonds,  but  they  were 
most  crystal. 

Field  was  then,  evidently,  the  first  person  to 
ascend  Mount  Washington,  for  the  Indians  of  the 
region,  if  we  may  believe  Field's  statement  given 
in  the  passage  just  quoted  from  Winthrop,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  its  truth,  had  never 
dared  to  undertake  the  ascent  to  this  supposed 

21 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

abode  of  the  Great  Spirit.  He  is  thought  to  have 
gone  up  the  ridge  (Boott  Spur)  between  Tucker- 
man's  Ravine  and  the  valley  of  the  Dry,  or  Mount 
Washington,  River. 

The  glowing  account  Field  gave  on  his  return 
of  the  riches  he  had  found  fired  other  daring  men 
to  undertake  the  exploration  of  the  Mountains. 
Thomas  Gorges,  Deputy-Governor,  and  Richard 
Vines,  Esq.,  Councillor,  of  the  Province  of  Maine, 
started  out  later  in  the  same  year.  Winthrop  gives 
the  following  account  of  their  journey  and  its 
results: — 

The  report  he  [Darby  Field]  brought  of  shining  stones, 
etc.,  caused  divers  others  to  travel  thither,  but  they 
found  nothing  worth  their  pains.  Among  others,  Mr. 
Gorge  [sic]  and  Mr.  Vines,  two  of  the  magistrates  of  Sir 
Ferdinand  Gorge  his  province,  went  thither  about  the 
end  of  this  month  [October].  They  went  up  Saco  river 
in  birch  canoes,  and  that  way,  they  found  it  90  miles  to 
Pegwagget,  an  Indian  town,  but  by  land  it  is  but  60. 
Upon  Saco  river  they  found  many  thousand  acres  of  rich 
meadow,  but  there  are  ten  falls,  which  hinder  boats,  etc. 
From  the  Indian  town  they  went  up  hill  (for  the  most 
part),  about  30  miles  in  woody  lands,  then  they  went 
about  7  or  8  miles  upon  shattered  rocks,  without  tree  or 
grass,  very  steep  all  the  way.  At  the  top  is  a  plain  about 
three  or  four  miles  over,  all  shattered  stones,  and  upon 
that  is  another  rock  or  spire,  about  a  mile  in  height,  and 
about  an  acre  of  ground  at  the  top.  At  the  top  of  the 
plain  arise  four  great  rivers,  each  of  them  so  much  water, 
at  the  first  issue,  as  would  drive  a  mill ;  Connecticut  river 
from  two  heads  at  the  N.  W.,  and  S.  W.  which  join  in  one 
about  60  miles  off,  Saco  river  on  the  S.  E.,  Amascoggen 
which  runs  into  Casco  Bay  at  the  N.  E.,  and  Kennebeck, 
at  the  N.  by  E.   The  mountain  runs  E.  and  W.  30  or 

22 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

40  miles,  but  the  peak  is  above  all  the  rest.  They  went 
and  returned  in  15  days. 

John  Josselyn,  traveler  and  writer,  appears  to 
have  explored  the  White  Hills  during  his  second 
visit  to  New  England,  between  1663  and  1671.  He 
gives  a  quaint  and  curious  description  of  them  in 
his  "  New  England's  Rarities  Discovered  "  (1672) : — 

Four  score  miles  (upon  a  direct  line),  to  the  Northwest 
of  Scarborow,  a  ridge  of  Mountains  run  Northwest  and 
Northeast  an  hundred  Leagues,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  White  Mountains,  upon  which  lieth  Snow  all  the  year, 
and  is  a  Landmark  twenty  miles  off  at  Sea.  It  is  a  rising 
ground  from  the  Sea  shore  to  these  Hills,  and  they  are 
inaccessible,  but  by  the  Gullies  which  the  dissolved  Snow 
hath  made;  in  these  Gullies  grow  Saven  Bushes,  which 
being  taken  hold  of  are  a  good  help  to  the  climbing  Dis- 
coverer; upon  the  top  of  the  highest  of  these  Mountains 
is  a  large  Level  or  Plain  of  a  day's  journey  over,  whereon 
nothing  grows  but  Moss ;  at  the  farther  end  of  this  Plain 
is  another  Hill  called  the  Sugar  Loaf,  to  outward  appear- 
ance a  rude  heap  of  massie  stones  piled  one  upon  another, 
and  you  may  as  you  ascend  step  from  one  stone  to 
another,  as  if  you  were  going  up  a  pair  of  stairs,  but 
winding  still  about  the  Hill  till  you  come  to  the  top, 
which  will  require  half  a  days  time,  and  yet  it  is  not  above 
a  Mile,  where  there  is  also  a  Level  of  about  an  Acre  of 
ground,  with  a  pond  of  clear  water  in  the  midst  of  it; 
which  you  may  hear  run  down,  but  how  it  ascends  is  a 
mystery.  From  this  rocky  Hill  you  may  see  the  whole 
Country  round  about;  it  is  far  above  the  lower  Clouds, 
and  from  hence  we  beheld  a  Vapour  (like  a  great  Pillar), 
drawn  up  by  the  Sun  Beams  out  of  a  great  Lake  or  Pond 
into  the  Air,  where  it  was  formed  into  a  Cloud.  The 
Country  beyond  these  Hills  Northward  is  daunting  terri- 
ble, being  full  of  rocky  Hills,  as  thick  as  Mole-hills  in  a 
Meadow,  and  cloathed  with  infinite  thick  Woods. 

23 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

In  his  "An  Account  of  Two  Voyages  to  New- 
England"  (1674),  Josselyn  gives  further  descrip- 
tion of  the  country  "as  Rockie  and  Mountanious, 
full  of  tall  wood."  "One  stately  mountain  there  is 
surmounting  the  rest,  about  four  score  mile  from  the 
Sea,"  he  says,  and  continues,  "Between  the  moun- 
tains are  many  ample  rich  and  pregnant  valleys  as 
ever  eye  beheld,  beset  on  each  side  with  variety  of 
goodly  Trees,  the  grass  man-high  unmowed,  uneaten, 
and  uselessly  withering";  and  "within  these  val- 
leys are  spacious  lakes  or  ponds  well  stored  with 
Fish  and  Beavers;  the  original  of  all  the  great 
Rivers  in  the  Countrie."  He  corrects  his  previous 
statement  as  to  the  snow's  lying  upon  the  moun- 
tains the  entire  year  by  excepting  the  month  of 
August;  speaks  of  the  black  flies  as  "so  numerous 
.  .  .  that  a  man  cannot  draw  his  breath,  but  he  will 
suck  of  them  in";  remarks  that  "some  suppose  the 
white  mountains  were  first  raised  by  earthquakes"; 
and  adds,  "they  are  hollow,  as  may  be  guessed  by 
the  resounding  of  the  rain  upon  the  level  on  the 
top." 

Belknap  records  an  ascent  of  Mount  Washington 
made  by  "a  ranging  company,"  April  29,  1725, 
which  found  the  snow  four  feet  deep  on  the  north- 
west side,  the  summit  almost  bare  of  snow  though 
covered  with  white  frost  and  ice,  and  the  alpine 
pond  frozen.  A  similar  party,  he  relates,  was  "in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  White  Mountains,  on  a 
warm  day,  in  the  month  of  March,"  in  1746,  and 
was  "alarmed  with  a  repeated  noise,  which  they 
supposed   to  be  the  firing  of  guns.    On   further 

24 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

search,"  he  continues,  "they  found  it  to  be  caused 
by  rocks,  falling  from  the  south  side  of  a  steep 
mountain."  The  same  authority  tells  also  of  an 
ascent  to  the  summit  made  on  the  6th  of  June,  1774, 
by  Captain  Evans  and  some  other  men  who  were 
making  a  road  through  the  eastern  pass  of  the  moun- 
tains, and  who  found  "on  the  south  side,  in  one  of 
the  deep  gullies,  a  body  of  snow  thirteen  feet  deep, 
and  so  hard  as  to  bear  them."  On  the  19th  of  the 
same  month,  some  of  the  same  party  ascended 
again,  and  in  the  same  spot  the  snow,  they  found, 
was  five  feet  deep.  In  the  first  week  of  September, 
1783,  two  men  who  attempted  to  ascend  the  Moun- 
tain, found  the  bald  top  so  covered  with  snow  and 
ice  that  they  could  not  reach  the  summit.  "But 
this,"  says  the  historian,  "does  not  happen  every 
year  so  soon;  for  the  mountain  has  been  ascended 
as  late  as  the  first  week  in  October,  when  no  snow 
was  upon  it." 

The  pass  now  called  Crawford  Notch  was  known 
to  the  Indians,  but  was  probably  little  used  by  them, 
because  of  their  superstitious  fear  of  the  Mountains. 
It  is  maintained  by  some,  however,  that  certain  war 
parties  of  Canadian  Indians  used  this  passage  in 
making  raids  upon  the  New  England  coast.  Belknap 
says  that  the  Indians  formerly  led  their  captives 
through  it  to  Canada,  and  we  are  told  that  in  the 
spring  of  1746  a  raiding  party  attacked  Gorham, 
Maine,  and  carried  off  several  prisoners,  one  of 
whom  described  the  march  to  Canada  as  being 
through  the  Notch. 

It  was  in  1771  that  the  pass  was  first  made  known 

25 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

to  the  New  England  colonists.  Timothy  Nash,  a 
hunter,  when  in  pursuit  of  a  moose  which  had 
eluded  him,  climbed  a  tree  on  Cherry  Mountain  and, 
as  he  was  looking  about  in  the  hope  of  espying  his 
game,  he  saw  to  his  surprise  a  deep  depression  in 
the  mountain  wall.  As  soon  as  possible  he  made  his 
way  thither  and  explored  the  defile,  following  the 
Saco  down  through.  On  his  arrival  at  Portsmouth, 
he  informed  Governor  Wentworth  of  his  discovery, 
a  most  important  one,  as  such  a  gap  in  the  Moun- 
tains would  save  much  in  journeying  between  the 
seacoast  and  the  upper  Connecticut  valley.  The 
governor,  wishing  to  test  the  value  of  the  pass  as  a 
trade  route,  offered  Nash  a  grant  of  the  tract  of 
land  (known  to-day  as  "Nash  and  Sawyer's  Loca- 
tion") extending  from  the  Notch  to  a  point  beyond 
the  present  Fabyan  House,  if  he  would  bring  a  horse 
through  from  Lancaster.  Enlisting  the  aid  of  a 
fellow  hunter  by  the  name  of  Benjamin  Sawyer, 
Nash  succeeded  in  performing  the  required  task  and 
in  thus  gaining  the  promised  reward  for  himself  and 
his  partner.^  The  two  worthies  soon  squandered, 
however,  the  proceeds  of  their  grant.  A  road  ^  was 

*  The  story  of  the  discovery  as  given  in  the  Crawford  History  varies 
somewhat  from  the  account  I  have  followed,  which  is  based  on  an- 
other and  later  source.  According  to  the  former  record,  the  two 
hunters  went  out  together  for  the  express  purpose  of  discovering  such 
a  means  of  communication  and  the  tree-climbing  was  done  after  the 
discovery  to  obtain  a  better  view  and  thus  make  sure  of  the  fact. 
The  condition  upon  which  the  grant  was  made  by  Governor  Went- 
worth in  1773,  according  to  this  authority,  was  that  they  should 
make  a  good  road  through  their  tract  and  procure  the  settlement  of 
five  families  on  it  within  five  years. 

^  This  "never  well-finished  county  road"  was  paid  for  out  of  the 
proceeds  of  a  confiscated  Tory  estate.  It  is  said  to  have  been  a  singu- 

26 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

shortly  after  built  and  thus  a  direct  route  between 
the  seacoast  and  upper  Coos  was  established.  The 
first  merchandise  carried  down  from  Lancaster  was 
a  barrel  of  tobacco  and  the  first  commodity  trans- 
ported in  the  opposite  direction  a  barrel  of  whiskey, 
most  of  the  contents  of  which  are  said  to  have  been 
consumed  on  the  way.  On  December  28,  1803,  a 
turnpike,  the  tenth  in  New  Hampshire,  was  incor- 
porated and  shortly  afterwards  ^  was  constructed 
through  the  Notch  at  an  expense  of  $40,000  for 
twenty  miles,  the  money  being  raised  by  lottery.  It 
occupied  to  some  extent  the  site  of  the  old  road,  was 
more  skillfully  built  than  its  predecessor,  and  soon 
became  one  of  the  best-paying  turnpikes  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  State. 

In  July,  1784,  a  journey  to  the  Mountains  was 
accomplished,  which  is  noteworthy  for  the  number 
and  character  of  the  members  of  the  party  who 
made  it  and  because  of  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
undertaken.  I  refer  to  the  expedition  made  by  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Jeremy  Belknap,  the  historian  of  New 
Hampshire,  then  a  resident  of  Dover;  the  Rev- 
erend Daniel  Little,  of  Wells,  Maine ;  the  Reverend 

lar  specimen  of  highway  engineering,  being  laid  out,  in  the  main, 
fifty  or  sixty  feet  higher  than  the  later  turnpike,  being  so  steep  in 
places  that  it  was  necessary  to  draw  horses  and  wagons  up  with 
ropes,  and  crossing  the  Saco,  we  are  told,  no  less  than  thirty-two 
times  in  ascending  the  valley.  Theodore  Dwight,  Jr.,  says  the  road 
was  built  in  1785.  It  was  in  part  at  least  constructed  in  1774,  as  the 
statement  of  Belknap  given  on  page  25  bears  witness. 

^  Dr.  Shattuk,  of  Boston,  in  his  account,  published  in  the  Phila- 
delphia Medical  and  Physical  Journal  (1808),  of  his  excursion  to  the 
White  Hills  in  the  preceding  year,  says,  in  speaking  of  the  Notch, 
"A  turnpike-road  is  now  [August,  1807]  building  from  Bath,  through 
the  Notch,  to  Portland." 

27 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Manasseh  Cutler,  of  Ipswich,  Massachusetts;  Dr. 
Joshua  Fisher,  of  Beverly,  Massachusetts;  Mr. 
Heard,  of  Ipswich,  and  two  young  collegians, 
Hubbard  and  Bartlett,  who  set  out  to  make  a  tour 
of  the  White  Mountains  "with  a  view  to  make 
particular  observations  on  the  several  phenomena 
that  might  occur."  For  this  purpose  they  were 
equipped  with  various  instruments,  including  ba- 
rometers, thermometers,  a  sextant,  and  surveying 
compasses.  They  were  thus  the  first  of  a  consider- 
able line  of  scientific  inquirers  to  visit  these  hills. 

The  historian  has  left  several  records  ^  of  the  trip. 
Let  me  briefly  advert  to  these,  noting  their  character 
and  provenience.  In  the  first  place,  much  of  the 
Reverend  Doctor's  correspondence  with  his  friend 
Ebenezer  Hazard,  of  Philadelphia,  has  been  pre- 
served and  printed  in  the  "Collections"  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

Among  these  letters  we  find  a  record  of  Belknap's 
intention  to  make  such  a  journey,  for  under  date  of 
July  4,  1784,  he  writes:  "  I  expect,  next  week,  to  set 
out  on  a  land  tour  to  the  White  Mts.,  in  company 
with  several  gentlemen  of  a  scientific  turn.  I  may 
write  you  again  once  before  I  go;  but,  if  I  live  to 
come  back,  you  may  depend  on  such  a  description 
as  I  may  be  able  to  give."  Dr.  Belknap's  letters  to 
Mr.  Hazard,  giving  an  account  of  his  tour  are,  un- 

^  Dr.  Cutler  also  left  an  account  of  the  journey,  which  is  graphic 
and  well  written  and  which  may  be  found  in  his  Life,  Journals,  and 
Correspondence,  published  in  1888.  Belknap  was  indebted  to  Cutler 
for  his  information  about  the  ascent  and  descent  of  the  chief  peak. 
Cutler's  manuscript  breaks  off  before  the  description  of  the  return 
is  finished,  but  the  remainder  is  covered  in  an  account  of  the  tour 
written  by  Mr.  Little. 

28 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

fortunately,  not  preserved  among  the  Hazard  letters. 
The  want  of  such  a  narrative,  however,  is  fully  sup- 
plied, as  has  been  intimated.  There  is  extant,  first, 
a  memoir,  "Description  of  the  White  Mountains," 
which  was  sent  by  him  to  the  American  Philosophi- 
cal Society  of  Philadelphia,  and  to  which  "great 
attention  was  paid,"  writes  Hazard.  This  was  pub- 
lished in  1786,  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Society's 
"Transactions,"  and  in  substance  is  similar  to  the 
account  afterwards  published  in  the  third  volume 
of  Dr.  Belknap's  "History  of  New  Hampshire." 
Both  of  these  records  are  very  different  in  form  from 
the  third  account,  which  consists  of  the  original 
notes  kept  by  the  doctor  in  the  form  of  a  diary. 
These  have  been  printed  with  the  correspondence 
above  mentioned,  and  on  them  I  shall  largely  rely 
for  my  summary  of  this  notable  trip.  In  the  chapter 
on  the  White  Mountains,  given  in  the  "History,"  the 
author  refers  to  the  visit  to  the  Mountains  made  by 
a  party  of  gentlemen  in  1784,  but  gives  no  intima- 
tion that  he  was  one  of  the  company.  A  few  addi- 
tional particulars  are,  however,  there  given. 

The  historian's  account  of  the  trip  recorded  in  his 
diary  is  so  naive  and  detailed  that  one  may  be  par- 
doned for  thinking  that  it  may  be  of  sufficient  inter- 
est to  give  rather  fully. 

At  Conway  the  travelers  found  Colonel  Joseph 
Whipple,  of  Dartmouth  (later  Jefferson),  and  Cap- 
tain Evans,  who  was  to  be  their  pilot,  ready  to  go 
with  them.  Thence  they  journeyed  through  what 
is  now  Jackson  and  "along  the  Shelburne  Road"  to 
apparently  about  three  fourths  of  a  mile  beyond  the 

29 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Glen  Ellis  Falls,  where  they  encamped  for  the  night. 
The  next  day,  Saturday,  July  24,  the  party  under- 
took the  ascent  of  "the  Mountain "  from  the  eastern 
side.  Dr.  Fisher  soon  gave  out,  owing  to  a  pain  in 
his  side,  and  returned  to  the  camp,  where  Colonel 
Whipple's  negro  man  had  been  left  in  charge  of  the 
horses  and  baggage.  After  about  two  hours  more  of 
climbing,  "having  risen  many  very  steep  and  ex- 
tremely difficult  precipices,  I  found  my  breath  fail," 
says  Dr.  Belknap,^  and  in  a  consultation  of  the 
party  it  was  decided  that  inasmuch  as  many  stops 
had  had  to  be  made  on  his  account  and  as  the  pilot 
supposed  they  were  not  more  than  halfway  up  to 
"the  Plain,"  he  should  return.  Refusing  to  deprive 
those  who  offered  to  go  back  with  him  of  their  ex- 
pected pleasure,  the  good  doctor  came  down  safely 
alone  in  about  an  hour  and  a  half  and  arrived  "much 
fatigued,"  at  the  camp,  "about  10  o'clock."  It 
came  on  to  rain  toward  night,  so  those  at  the  camp 
repaired  their  tent  with  bark,  took  all  the  baggage 
into  it,  and  anxiously  awaited  the  return  of  their 
friends.  The  rain  increased  and  continued  all  night, 
but  although  the  tent  leaked  and  the  fire  "decayed," 
they  managed  to  keep  the  fire  going  and  themselves 
dry. 

It  ceased  raining  at  daylight  on  Sunday  and  soon 
thereafter  the  report  of  a  gun  partly  relieved  the 
anxiety  of  Drs.  Belknap  and  Fisher.  Shortly  after 
the  party  of  climbers  arrived  safely  at  the  camp. 

^  "The  spirit  was  willing  but  the  flesh  (i.  e.,  the  lungs)  weak,"  he 
says  in  a  letter  to  Hazard,  and  in  the  same  letter,  "You  will  not 
wonder  that  such  a  quantity  of  matter  ('  i8o  or  190  lbs.  of  mortality') 
could  not  ascend  the  White  Mountains  fcurther  than  it  did." 

30 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

They  reported  that  they  passed  the  night  around  a 
fire,  which  was  their  only  defense  against  the  rain, 
and  that  "they  had  ascended  to  the  summit,  but 
had  not  had  so  good  a  view  as  they  wished,  the 
Mountain  being  most  of  the  time  involved  with 
clouds,  which  rolled  up  and  down,  in  every  direction, 
above,  below,  and  around  them."  Their  scientific 
observations  were  by  "this  unfortunate  circum- 
stance" for  the  most  part  prevented.  They  eirrived 
at  the  pinnacle  of  the  Sugar- Loaf  at  i  .06,  their  actual 
time  of  climbing  from  the  tent  being  five  hours  and 
thirteen  minutes.  On  the  highest  rock  they  found  an 
old  hat,  which  had  been  left  there  in  June,  1774,  by 
Captain  Evans's  party.  They  dined  at  2  o'clock,  we 
are  told,  on  partridges  and  neat's  tongue,  cut  the 
letters  "N.H."  on  the  uppermost  rock  and  under  a 
stone  left  a  plate  of  lead  ^  on  which  were  engraved 
their  names.  The  descent  was  a  particularly  diffi- 
cult one,  as,  owing  to  the  clouds,  even  the  guide 
could  not  find  the  way  down.  Soon  after  their  return 
to  the  camp  they  left  for  Dartmouth. 

Their  course  in  ascending  the  mountain  was  evi- 
dently through  Tuckerman's  Ravine,  probably  over 
Boott  Spur,  and  up  the  east  side  of  the  cone,  their 
route  in  the  lower  part  being  indicated  by  the  stream 
which  bears  Dr.  Cutler's  name.^    Dr.  Cutler  esti- 

*  The  finding  of  this  plate  eighteen  years  later  was  "the  source  of 
great  mystification  to  the  villagers  at  Jackson."    (Sweetser.) 

2  Given  to  the  river,  it  is  said,  by  Dr.  Cutler's  express  desire. 
According  to  Belknap,  another  tributary  of  the  Ellis  River  "falls 
from  the  same  mountain,"  a  short  distance  to  the  south,  and  is  called 
New  River.  Belknap's  map  makes  Cutler's  River  flow  from  the 
present  Tuckerman's  Ravine.  The  account  of  Dr.  Bigelow,  a  later 
explorer,  agrees  with  this.  In  later  maps,  however,  the  names  of  the 

31 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

mated  'the  height  of  the  "pinnacle"  or  "sugar- 
loaf,"  as  Belknap  calls  it,  to  be  not  less  than  three 
hundred  feet.  From  some  unsatisfactory  observa- 
tions with  the  barometer,  the  elevation  of  the  princi- 
pal summit  above  the  sea  was  computed  to  be  nearly 
ten  thousand  feet.  The  party  were  disappointed  in 
their  attempt  to  measure  the  altitude  geometrically 
from  the  base,  because  "in  the  meadow  they  could 
not  obtain  a  base  of  sufficient  length,  nor  see  the 
summit  of  the  sugar-loaf;  and  in  another  place, 
where  these  inconveniences  were  removed,  they 
were  prevented  by  the  almost  continual  obscuration 
of  the  mountains  by  clouds." 

"It  is  likely,"  says  Professor  Tuckerman,  "that 
the  plants  of  the  higher  regions  were  observed,^  and 
Mr.  Oakes  possessed  fragments  of  such  a  collection 
made,  either  now  or  later,  by  Dr.  Cutler,  but  the 
latter  did  not  notice  them  in  his  memoir  on  the 
plants  of  New  England  published  the  next  year  in 
the  transaction  of  the  Academy,  ^  nor  is  there  any 
mention  of  them  in  the  six  small  volumes  of  his 
botanical  manuscripts  which  have  come  to  my 
knowledge." 

As  the  name  of  Mount  Washington  is  found  in 
Dr.  Cutler's  manuscript  of  1784,  it  is  probable  that 

streams  were  transposed,  the  error  being  noticed  by  Mr.  Sweetser, 
who  was  confirmed  in  his  decision  in  the  matter  by  Professor  Tucker- 
man. New  River  got  its  name  from  the  fact  of  its  recent  origin,  it 
having  been  formed  in  October,  1775,  during  a  great  flood. 
y.  ^  Some  general  observations  on  the  vegetation  of  the  Mountains, 
set  down  by  Dr.  Cutler  in  a  manuscript  preserved  by  Belknap,  are 
quoted  in  Belknap's  History  and  Dwight's  Travels. 

^  The  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  of  which  Dr. 
Cutler  was  a  member. 

32 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

the  appellation  was  given  to  the  mountain  by  the 
party  whose  journey  has  just  been  described.  The 
name  first  appears  in  print  in  Belknap's  "History  of 
New  Hampshire,"  in  the  third  volume,  which  was 
published  in  1792.^ 

Dr.  Cutler  again  visited  the  Mountains  in  July, 
1804,  this  time  chiefly  to  collect  botanical  specimens, 
in  company  with  several  friends,  among  whom  were 
Dr.  Nathaniel  Bowditch  and  Dr.  W.  D.  Peck,  after- 
ward professor  of  natural  history  at  Cambridge. 
The  party  encamped  on  the  side  of  Mount  Wash- 
ington on  the  night  of  the  27th,  and  on  the  next  day 
Cutler,  Peck,  and  one  or  two  others  made  the  ascent, 
arriving  at  12.30.  There  were  no  clouds  about  the 
mountain,  but  the  climbers  were  much  chilled,  and 
the  descent  was  extremely  fatiguing.  Barometrical 
observations  made  at  this  time  were  computed  by 
Dr.  Bowditch  to  give  an  elevation  of  7055  feet  for 
the  highest  summit. 

Dr.  Peck  made  during  the  trip  a  collection  of 
alpine  plants,  the  citations  of  which  in  Pursh's 
"Flora  of  North  America,"  published  in  18 14,  "en- 
able us,"  says  Professor  Tuckerman,  "to  determine 
the  earliest  recognition  of  several  of  the  most  in- 
teresting species." 

Of  early  travelers  to  the  Mountains  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  was  the  Reverend  Dr.  Timothy 
Dwight,  president  of  Yale  College  from  1794  to 
1817.  Dr.  Dwight  made  two  journeys  on  horseback 
to  this  region,  the  first  in  1797  and  the  second  in 

^  "It  has  lately  been  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Mount  Wash- 
ington," is  Belknap's  statement. 

33 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

1803.^  His  companion  on  the  first  expedition 
("Journey  to  the  White  Mountains")  was  a  Mr.  L., 
one  of  the  tutors  of  Yale  College,  and  their  objects 
were  to  examine  the  Connecticut  River  and  to  visit 
the  White  Mountains.  Their  first  objective  point 
was  Lancaster,  whence  they  proposed  to  proceed 
through  the  Notch  to  their  second,  Portland.  They 
reached  Lancaster  on  the  morning  of  September  30. 
They  left  there  on  October  2,  stayed  overnight  at 
Rosebrook's,  and  on  October  3  passed  through  the 
Notch,  of  which  Dr.  Dwight  gives  a  vivid  descrip- 
tion. It  is  "a  very  narrow  defile,"  he  says,  "extend- 
ing two  miles  in  length  between  two  huge  cliffs, 
apparently  rent  asunder  by  some  vast  convulsion  of 
nature.  This  convulsion,"  he  continues,  "was,  in 
my  own  view,  unquestionably  that  of  the  deluge." 
He  gives  interesting  information  about  the  size 
and  character  of  the  mountain  towns,  describes 
Mount  Washington  and  other  features  of  the  land- 
scape graphically,  and,  altogether,  has  provided  a 
very  readable  narrative  of  his  tour.  In  his  visit  to 
the  Mountains  in  1803,  President  Dwight  had  as 
companion  two  graduates  and  a  senior  of  Yale 
College,  and  their  object  was  to  ride  up  the  Con- 
necticut River  as  far  as  the  Canadian  boundary 
("Journey  to  the  Canada  Line").  In  the  course  of 
the  tour,  however,  the  party  left  the  Connecticut, 
went  up  the  Lower  Ammonoosuc,  turned  aside  from 

*  Dr.  Dwight  also  made  two  horseback  journeys  to  Lake  Winne- 
pesaukee.  The  first  of  these  was  made  in  the  autumn  of  1812  and  the 
second  in  the  same  season  of  the  next  year.  In  both  excursions  he 
touched  the  fringe  of  the  White  Mountain  region,  passing  through 
Plymouth  in  both  and  ascending  Red  Hill  on  the  second. 

34 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

the  latter  to  visit  Bethlehem,  whence  they  returned 
to  the  Ammonoosuc,  and  then  went  on  to  the  Notch, 
which  they  visited  on  September  30.  "I  renewed," 
says  the  traveler,  "a  prospect  of  all  the  delightful 
scenes,  which  I  have  mentioned  in  a  former  account." 
It  was  at  this  time  that  he  gave  to  one  of  the  water- 
falls near  the  Gate  of  the  Notch  the  name  "Silver 
Cascade,"  which  it  still  bears.  He  revisited  Rose- 
brook's,  and  then  went  by  way  of  Jefferson  to 
Lancaster  and  thence  onward  to  Canada. 

Another  early  scientific  explorer  of  the  White 
Hills,  who  has  left  us  an  account  of  his  excursion 
and  a  record  of  his  observations,  and  who  deserves 
a  brief  mention,  was  Dr.  George  Shattuk,  of 
Boston.  He  was  one  of  a  party  of  six,  which  set  out 
from  Hanover,  July  8,  1807,  taking  along  various 
scientific  instruments.  On  Saturday  the  nth  the 
members  of  the  party  started  from  Rosebrook's  to 
ascend  Mount  Washington,  at  the  summit  of  which 
they  arrived  the  following  day.  Dr.  Shattuk  notes 
that  the  temperature  there  at  noon  was  66°  and  that 
the  day  was  not  very  clear,  the  distant  horizon  be- 
ing smoky.  He  describes  briefly  the  plants,  the 
character  of  the  surface  of  the  summit,  the  rareness 
of  the  atmosphere,  and  other  phenomena.  Unfor- 
tunately, his  attempts  to  make  barometrical  obser- 
vations for  the  purpose  of  estimating  the  height  of 
the  mountain  were,  he  says,  "defeated  by  an  acci- 
dent, the  prevention  of  which  was  beyond  my  con- 
troul." 

The  next  noteworthy  American  explorer  of  the 
White  Hills  was  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow.  Botany  was  the 

35 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

particular  interest  of  this  famous  Boston  physician, 
who  was  born  in  1797  and  who  lived  to  the  ripe  old 
age  of  ninety-two.  His  tour  to  the  Mountains  was 
made  in  1816,  in  company  with  Francis  C.  Gray, 
Esq.,  Dr.  Francis  Boott,  in  whose  honor  a  spur  of 
Mount  Washington  has  been  named,  Nathaniel 
Tucker,  and  Lemuel  Shaw,  Esq.,  afterward  Chief 
Justice  of  Massachusetts.  On  their  way  they 
climbed  Monadnock  and  Ascutney.  The  ascent  of 
the  White  Mountains  "was  at  that  time,"  says  the 
doctor,^  "an  arduous  undertaking,  owing  to  the 
rough  state  of  the  country  and  the  want  of  roads  or 
paths."  "We  were  obliged,"  he  says  further,  "to 
walk  about  fifteen  miles  and  to  encamp  two  nights 
in  the  brushwood  on  the  side  of  the  mountain." 
Each  man  of  the  party  having  carried  up  a  stick, 
they  were  enabled  to  build  a  fire  on  the  summit  and 
to  prepare  a  meal  from  such  supplies  as  their  guides 
had  brought  up.  The  day  (July  2)  was  a  fine  one, 
but  the  atmosphere  was  hazy,  so  that  their  view  of 
distant  objects  was  very  indistinct.  The  tempera- 
ture at  noon  was  57°  F.  From  the  registration  of  a 
mountain  barometer  at  that  hour,  calculations  were 
made  which  gave  the  height  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
correct  altitude.  As  a  memorial  of  their  achievement 

^  Dr.  Bigelow  published  an  account  of  the  journey  and  a  list  of  the 
plants  collected  in  the  New  England  Journal  of  Medicine  and  Surgery, 
for  October,  18 16.  The  quotations  in  the  text  are  taken  from  some 
autobiographical  notes,  quoted  in  a  Memoir  of  Jacob  Bigelow,  M.D., 
LL.D.,  by  George  E.  Ellis  (1880).  Writing  these  notes  about  fifty 
years  after  the  event.  Dr.  Bigelow's  memory  must  have  played  him 
false,  for  he  gives  the  year  of  the  journey  as  1815  and  states  that  it 
was  the  4th  of  July  when  the  party  was  on  the  summit  and  that  in 
celebration  of  the  day  Mr.  Gray  was  invited  to  deliver  an  impromptu 
address. 

36 


EARLY  EXPLORERS 

of  the  ascent  they  left  their  names  and  the  date 
inclosed  in  a  bottle  cemented  to  the  highest  rock. 
In  the  afternoon  they  descended  in  about  five  hours 
to  their  camping  place,  and  the  following  day  they 
reached  Conway. 

This  expedition,  besides  achieving  the  most  satis- 
factory determination  of  the  height  of  Mount 
Washington  that  had  been  made,  was  noteworthy 
as  a  natural  history  survey.  Dr.  Bigelow's  article 
"Some  Account  of  the  White  Mountains  of  New 
Hampshire,"  provided  a  statement  of  all  that  was 
known  of  their  mineralogy  and  zoology,  but  is 
especially  important  from  a  botanical  standpoint, 
for  his  list  of  plants,  or  florula,  "determined,"  says 
Professor  Tuckerman,  "in  great  measure  the  phse- 
nogamous  botany  of  our  Alps."  Very  appropriately 
Dr.  Bigelow's  name  has  been  since  given  to  a  grassy 
plot  (Bigelow's  Lawn),  rich  in  alpine  plants,  below 
the  cone  of  Washington  on  Boott  Spur.  Dr.  Boott 
returned  to  the  Mountains  in  August  of  the  same 
year,  and  as  a  result  of  his  trip  added  a  "consider- 
able" number  of  species  to  the  botanical  collection. 

Another  noted  botanist  to  explore  the  Mountains 
was  William  Oakes,  ^  who  visited  them,  in  company 

*  There  is  a  memoir  of  him  in  the  American  Journal  of  Science  and 
Arts  for  January,  1849,  by  Asa  Gray,  who  calls  him  "the  most  dis- 
tinguished botanist  of  New  England."  Oakes  was  born  at  Danvers, 
July  I,  1799,  and  was  drowned  by  falling  overboard  from  a  ferryboat 
between  Boston  and  East  Boston,  July  31,  1848,  it  is  supposed  as  a 
result  of  a  sudden  attack  of  faintness  or  vertigo.  He  graduated  in 
1820  from  Harvard,  where  his  previous  fondness  for  natural  history' 
was  developed  under  the  instruction  of  Professor  W.  D.  Peck.  Oakes 
named  Mounts  Clay  and  Jackson,  sending  his  guide  to  the  summit  of 
the  latter  to  kindle  a  bonfire  there  to  celebrate  the  event.  His  own 

37 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

with  his  friend  Dr.  Charles  Pickering,  in  1825, 
again  in  1826,  and  from  1843  on,  every  summer.  To 
him  we  are  indebted  for  additions  to  our  botanical 
knowledge,  but  especially  for  one  of  the  classics  of 
White  Mountain  literature,  his  "Scenery  of  the 
White  Mountains,"  a  book  consisting  of  descriptive 
letterpress  accompanying  large  lithographic  plates 
from  drawings  by  Isaac  Sprague.^  His  purpose  of 
publishing  a  smaller  volume  to  be  called  "The  Book 
of  the  White  Mountains"  and  to  consist  of  descrip- 
tions of  things  of  interest,  a  flora  of  the  alpine  plants, 
with  the  mosses  and  lichens,  and  a  complete  guide 
for  visitors,  was  frustrated  by  his  tragic  death  the 
year  (1848)  of  the  publication  of  his  "Scenery." 

name  is  perpetuated  in  the  Mountains  by  Oakes  Gulf,  the  deep  ravine 
to  the  east  of  Mounts  Pleasant  and  Franklin, 

^  There  are  in  all  sixteen  full  folio  pages  of  plates.  The  sixteenth 
plate  and  a  part  of  the  fourteenth  are  from  paintings  by  G.  N. 
Frankenstein,  a  well-known  artist  of  Cincinnati,  after  whom  a  cliff 
and  a  railroad  trestle  in  the  Crawford  Notch  are  named. 


Ill 

FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 
I.  THE  TOWNS 

It  was  not  until  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  that  the  New  England  colonies  were  suf- 
ficiently established,  2ind  the  country  secure  enough 
from  Indian  depredations,  for  the  settlement  of  the 
remoter  regions  to  be  thought  of  and  attempted. 
Fryeburg,  just  over  the  New  Hampshire  border  in 
Maine,  appears  to  be  the  first  town  in  this  region  to 
have  been  chartered.  The  land  there  was  granted, 
in  March,  1762,  to  General  Joseph  Frye  of  Andover, 
Massachusetts,  an  officer  in  the  king's  army,  in  con- 
sideration of  his  gallant  deeds  on  the  frontier.  The 
conditions  of  the  grant  were,  according  to  Willey,  — 

That  he  should  give  bond  to  the  province  treasurer  to 
have  the  township  settled  with  sixty  good  families,  each 
of  which  should  have  built,  within  the  term  of  five  years, 
a  good  house,  twenty  feet  by  eighteen,  and  seven  feet 
stud,  and  have  cleared  seven  acres  for  pasturage  and  till- 
age. He  should  reserve  one  sixty-fourth  of  the  township 
for  the  first  Protestant  minister,  one  sixty-fourth  for  a 
parsonage  forever,  one  sixty-fourth  for  a  school  fund  for- 
ever, one  sixty-fourth  for  Harvard  College  forever.  A 
Protestant  minister  was  to  be  settled  in  the  township 
within  ten  years. 

It  was  supposed  that  all  of  the  land  granted  to 
General  Frye  was  located  in  the  province  of  Maine, 

39 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

but  it  was  subsequently  found  that  a  considerable 
part  of  it  was  in  New  Hampshire.  The  readjustment 
of  grants  that  was  made  after  this  became  known 
is  described  farther  on,  where  the  settlement  of  Con- 
way is  narrated. 

Nathaniel  Smith  made  the  first  settlement  on  the 
west  line  of  the  town,  on  the  same  site  as  that  of  the 
ancient  Indian  village  of  Pequawket  (or  "Pegwag- 
get,"  as  Winthrop  spelled  it).  Smith  was,  according 
to  Willey,  "a  sort  of  squatter,  led  hither  of  his  own 
free  will  and  inclination."  "His  cabin  was  reared," 
the  historian  says  further,  "and  his  family  moved 
into  it  the  year  succeeding  the  grant,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1763."  Among  the  other  early  settlers  were 
Moses  Ames,  John  and  David  Evans,  Samuel  Os- 
good, David  Page,  Nathaniel  Frye,  and  Joseph 
Frye,  Jr.,  who  came  chiefly  from  Concord,  New 
Hampshire,  and  Andover,  Massachusetts.  To  reach 
this  point,  they  had  to  make  their  way  through  an 
unbroken  wilderness  for  sixty  or  seventy  miles. 
Their  nearest  white  neighbors  were,  for  a  time, 
the  inhabitants  of  Saco,  and  Sanford,  nearly  sixty 
miles  distant,  was  their  source  of  supplies.  The  only 
mode  of  conveyance  was  on  horses  and  their  only 
way  thither  was  a  blazed  trail.  Such  were  the  hard- 
ships these  first  settlers  had  to  encounter,  and  the 
willingness  to  endure  them  indicates  of  what  stern 
stuff  the  pioneers  were  made!  Fryeburg  grew  rap- 
idly, in  fact  attained  nearly  its  full  size  in  a  few 
years,  and  was  for  some  time  the  chief  village  in  the 
White  Mountain  region.  It  was  incorporated  in 
January,  1777.    The  locality  had  been  a  favorite 

40 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

resort  of  the  Indians,  and  for  many  years  after  the 
dispersion  of  the  Pequawket  tribe,  solitary  members 
of  it  continued  to  linger  about  their  old  home. 
Many  of  them  fought  on  the  American  side  in  the 
Revolution  and  rendered  good  service,  receiving 
testimonials  for  it  from  the  Government. 

The  New  England  colonists  had  visited  this  region 
on  several  occasions  long  before  its  settlement  was 
thought  of,  and  for  a  very  different  purpose.  In  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  during  Queen 
Anne's  War,  the  savages,  who  were  allies  of  the 
French,  became  very  troublesome  to  the  English 
settlements,  keeping  the  colonists  in  a  continual 
state  of  alarm  by  their  attacks  and  depredations. 
At  length,  the  authorities  of  Massachusetts,  goaded 
to  desperation  by  this  condition  and  by  fresh  forays, 
determined  upon  punitive  measures.  Accordingly, 
in  September,  1703,  a  force  of  three. hundred  and 
sixty  soldiers  was  sent  to  invade  the  Pequawket 
country.  But,  on  account  of  the  obstacles  they  had 
to  encounter  in  their  journey  and  the  ignorance  of 
their  guides,  this  incursion  availed  little.  Another 
punitive  expedition  was  undertaken  in  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year  by  Colonel  March,  of  Casco,  with 
very  little  success.  He  happened  upon  a  party  of 
Indians  and  twelve  of  them  were  either  killed  or 
captured.  This  partial  success  encouraged  the 
General  Court  to  offer  a  bounty  of  forty  pounds  for 
scalps,  in  the  hope  of  inducing  thereby  more  effective 
measures  to  be  taken  for  preventing  Indian  raids  on 
the  settlements  and  for  inflicting  further  punish- 
ment on  the  savages.   One  consequence  of  this  offer 

41 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

was  a  snowshoe  expedition,  made  in  midwinter 
through  the  mountain  passes  and  led  by  Colonel 
Tyng,  of  Tyngsboro,  which  brought  back  five  of 
those  repulsive  trophies. 

On  May  8,  1725,  O.S.,  occurred  the  foremost 
military  event  in  the  history  of  this  entire  region, 
the  battle  of  Pequawket,  or  battle  of  Lovewell's 
Pond,  as  it  is  more  usually  called,  the  name  of  the 
brave  commander  of  the  white  men  having  been 
later  given  to  the  pond  on  the  border  of  which  this 
engagement  took  place.  This  remote  lakelet,  sit- 
uated in  the  midst  of  the  woods  and  bordered  by 
low  hills,  with  its  two  islets  and  its  placid  waters, 
has  to-day  nothing  about  it  suggestive  of  warfare, 
but  rather  everything  suggestive  of  peace  and 
quiet;  but  its  north  shore  was  once  the  scene  of  one 
of  the  bloodiest  combats  in  the  Indian  history  of 
New  England. 

During  the  year  1724  the  Indians  were  uncom- 
monly bold  andjsavage  and  committed  numerous 
depredations  upon  the  more  exposed  settlements, 
such  as  Dunstable,^  killing  a  considerable  number  of 
white  men.  In  September  of  this  year,  the  Indians 
carried  away  two  men  from  the  town  just  mentioned 
and  killed  eight  or  nine  of  the  ten  men  sent  in  pur- 
suit. The  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  aroused 
by  the  report  of  these  forays  and  killings,  passed  a 
bill  offering  a  bounty  of  a  hundred  pounds  for  every 
Indian  scalp. 

^  Dunstable  (later  Nashua)  was  then  a  frontier  town  of  Meissa- 
chusetts,  being  south  of  the  then  recognized  boundary  between  that 
colony  and  New  Hampshire.  The  latter  did  not  become  an  entirely 
separate  colony  until  1741. 

42 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

Captain  John  Lovewell,  the  son  of  an  ensign  in 
Cromwell's  army,  was  an  able  colonial  partisan,  and 
his  expeditions  against  the  Indians  were  among  the 
most  successful  of  the  retaliatory  measures  of  the 
colonists.  In  December,  1724,  with  a  few  followers, 
he  killed  one  Indian  and  took  prisoner  another,  a 
boy,  northeast  of  Lake  Winnepesaukee.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1725,  he  led  a  force  of  forty  men  to  the  head 
of  Salmon  Falls  River,  now  in  Wakefield,  New 
Hampshire,  where  he  came  upon  a  party  of  ten  In- 
dians, who  were  asleep  by  their  fires.  Stationing  his 
men  advantageously,  he  killed  the  entire  number. 
For  the  ten  scalps  his  force  received  one  thousand 
pounds  when  it  reached  Boston  after  a  triumphal 
march  there.  We  can  realize  to  how  desperate  a  pass 
the  struggle  between  the  settlers  and  the  Indians 
had  come,  when  we  know  that  Lovewell's  party  did 
not  wait  to  learn  whether  the  Indians  were  friendly 
or  not,  but  assumed,  from  their  possession  of  new 
guns,  much  ammunition,  and  spare  blankets  and 
moccasins,  that  they  were  on  a  marauding  excursion. 
That  they  had  killed  Indians  was  all  the  soldiers 
cared  to  know. 

Lovewell's  last  and  most  memorable  expedition, 
which  resulted  in  the  bloody  encounter  by  the  pond, 
left  Dunstable  on  April  15,  1725,  with  the  object 
of  attacking  the  Indian  village  of  Pequawket  nn  the 
Saco.  His  force  on  this  occasion  consisted  at  the 
start  of  forty-six  men,  volunteers  from  Dunstable, 
Woburn,  Concord,  and  other  towns  in  the  vicinity. 
It  was  an  arduous  and  dangerous  undertaking,  a 
desperate  adventure,  to  attempt  to  march  more  than 

43 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

a  hundred  miles  into  the  wilderness,  much  of  which 
was  unbroken  and  all  of  which  was  without  a 
friendly  habitation  or  inhabitant.  But  Lovewell  was 
a  daring  spirit  and  he  had  brave  companions.  By 
sickness,  which  compelled  some  to  return  and  others 
to  remain  near  Ossipee  Pond,  their  ranks  were  re- 
duced to  thirty-four  when  they  reached  Saco  (now 
Lovewell's)  Pond  on  Thursday,  May  6.  Until  Sat- 
urday morning  they  lay  encamped  on  the  west 
shore  in  the  vicinity  of  the  chief  Indian  village,  pre- 
paring for  the  encounter,  uncertain  whether  their 
presence  had  been  detected,  fearful  of  attack  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  and  undecided  as  to  what 
course  were  best  to  pursue.  They  were  glad  when 
Saturday  morning  dawned  after  a  night  of  alarm, 
in  which  they  had  listened  to  the  distant  barking 
of  dogs  and  the  stealthy  marching  of  Indians,  as 
it  seemed,  in  their  near  vicinity.  After  they  had 
breakfasted  and  while  they  were  at  their  devotions, 
a  gunshot  was  heard  and  soon  they  caught  sight  of 
an  Indian  on  a  point  of  land  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  pond.  Concluding  that  the  main  body  of 
the  enemy  was  on  the  north  side,  the  intrepid  band 
marched  thither.  When  they  reached  the  slight 
elevation  at  the  northeast  point  of  the  pond,  they 
left  their  packs  there.  Freed  from  these  impedi- 
ments, they  advanced  cautiously  and  soon  dis- 
covered an  Indian,  who  had  evidently  been  out 
hunting,  and  who,  according  to  Belknap,  was  the 
Indian  previously  seen.  They  ambushed  him,  but 
missed  him  at  the  first  fire,  and  he  was  not  killed 
until  after  he  had  mortally  wounded  their  leader 

44 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

and  also  wounded  another  of  their  company.  Then 
they  started  back  for  the  place  where  the  packs  had 
been  left. 

Meanwhile  the  sachem  Paugus,  with  forty-one 
warriors  ^  in  two  companies,  had  discovered  and 
counted  the  packs  and  had  laid  an  ambuscade  with 
the  design  of  so  surprising  Lovewell's  men  as  to 
cause  them  to  surrender  at  once.  When  the  white 
men  came  up  and  began  searching  for  their  packs, 
the  Indians  suddenly  sprang  up,  with  a  terrible 
whoop,  fired  their  guns  directly  over  the  heads  of  the 
whites  and  ran  toward  them  with  ropes  demanding 
if  they  would  have  quarter.  Replying  that  it  would 
be  "only  at  the  muzzles  of  their  guns,"  the  brave 
captain  and  his  band  began  the  battle  by  rushing 
toward  the  Indians,  firing  as  they  advanced.  Love- 
well's  men  drove  the  Indians  some  distance  by  their 
charge,  but  were  repulsed  by  a  counter-charge  in 
which  the  wounded  Lovewell  and  eight  of  his  men 
were  killed.  Then  the  intrepid  band  began  a  retreat, 
fighting  step  by  step,  until  they  reached  a  spot  where 
a  ridge  of  rocks  was  on  their  left,  with  the  pond  at 
their  rear  and  the  mouth  of  a  brook  on  their  right. 
Here  they  made  a  stand  and  continued  to  fight, 
maintaining  their  position  until  sundown,  when  the 
savages  retreated,  under  the  command  of  Wahwa. 
They  left  many  dead  and  wounded,  including 
Paugus,  who  was  killed,  late  in  the  contest,  prob- 

^  One  account  says  seventy,  another  eighty,  and  another  sixty- 
three.  Belknap,  however,  declares  that  there  were  two  companies  and 
that  their  number  was  forty -one,  and  says  in  support  of  this  statement 
that  he  had  it  from  Evans,  who  had  it  from  one  of  the  Indians  who 
was  in  the  fight. 

45 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ably  by  the  fearless  Ensign  Seth  Wyman,  who  had 
become  the  final  leader  of  the  white  men.  It  had 
been  a  protracted  and  fierce  fight  at  close  quarters, 
the  hideous  yells  of  the  Indians,  the  cheers  of  the 
whites,  and  the  cracks  of  the  muskets  mingling  in 
an  indescribable  hurly-burly.  Chaplain  Frye,  after 
he  was  mortally  wounded  and  could  fight  no  longer, 
was  often  heard  praying  audibly  for  victory. 

About  midnight,  when  it  became  certain  that 
the  savages  would  not  return  to  renew  the  contest, 
the  remnant  of  the  command,  of  whom  only  nine 
remained  unwounded,  began  their  memorable  re- 
turn. Thirteen  or  more  of  their  number  they  left 
dead  or  dying  on  the  field;  four  others,  after  they 
had  gone  but  a  mile  and  a  half,  found  they  could  go 
no  farther.  The  main  party  of  eleven  reached  Dun- 
stable on  May  13  in  the  night.  Several  of  those  left 
behind  managed  after  terrible  sufferings  to  reach 
Dunstable  or  one  or  other  of  the  coast  settlements. 
Such  is  the  story  of  the  bloody  battle  ^  of  Love- 
well's  Pond,  which  has  been  described  at  some 
length  because  of  its  intrinsic  interest  and  because  it 
was  the  only  contest  of  this  sort  within  the  White 
Mountain  region. 

The  Indians  soon  abandoned  their  village  here 
and  retired  to  St.  Francis  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  The 
bodies  of  the  dead  white  men  were  buried  a  short 
time  afterward  by  a  party  under  Colonel  Tyng, 
which  went  to  the  scene  of  the  action  for  the  pur- 

*  A  number  of  ballads  and  poems  have  been  composed  on  this  his- 
toric encounter,  including  an  early  anonymous  ballad  and  the  first 
printed  production  of  Longfellow. 

46 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

poses  of  succoring  the  wounded  and  of  attacking  the 
Indians,  if  any  were  to  be  found. 

Starr  King  has  said  of  this  historic  pond  that  it 
is  "more  deeply  dyed  with  tradition  than  any  other 
sheet  of  water  in  New  England."  The  village  within 
whose  limits  the  pond  lies  and  whose  settlement  and 
growth  have  already  been  recorded  is  idyllic  for  its 
beauty  and  tranquillity  and  has  a  number  of  in- 
teresting associations.  Here  Daniel  Webster  taught 
in  the  noted  academy  for  nine  months  in  1802,  and 
often,  it  is  said,  he  fished  in  Lovewell's  Pond.  Frye- 
burg  was  the  old  home  of  a  number  of  prominent 
New  England  families,  such  as  the  Osgoods  and  the 
Danas;  poets  have  made  it  a  place  of  resort  and  have 
written  of  its  beauties  and  noble  views;  and  Howells 
has  placed  here  the  scene  of  the  opening  chapter  of 
his  "A  Modem  Instance." 

The  only  notable  happening  in  the  latter-day  his- 
tory of  this  quiet  White  Mountain  village  occurred 
at  the  end  of  August,  1906,  when  the  principal 
hotel,  the  Oxford,  built  about  fifteen  years  before, 
was  burned  to  the  ground,  together  with  many 
houses  and  stores.  The  fire  started  at  10.30  a.m., 
from  some  unknown  cause,  in  the  kitchen  of  the 
hotel  and  quickly  spread,  fanned  by  a  high  wind,  to 
the  neighboring  houses.  The  whole  business  center 
was  threatened  and  aid  was  summoned  from  Portland 
and  elsewhere.  Fortunately,  the  time  of  the  occur- 
rence of  the  fire  enabled  the  guests  all  to  get  out  in 
safety.  From  the  village  the  fire  spread  to  the  woods 
in  the  direction  of  Lovewell's  Pond,  where  it  burned 
fiercely  all  night  and  for  some  time  after.   Between 

47 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

twenty-five  and  thirty  buildings  were  destroyed,  the 
total  property  loss  being  $100,000.  The  burning  of 
the  only  large  hotel  in  the  village  was  a  great  blow 
to  it  as  a  summer  resort,  one,  indeed,  from  which  it 
has  not  as  yet  recovered. 

Plymouth,  beautiful  for  situation,  on  a  terrace 
near  the  confluence  of  the  Pemigewasset  and  Bakers 
Rivers,  is  on  the  border  of  the  White  Mountain 
region  and  has  from  early  times  been  an  important 
town.  It  was  granted,  July  15,  1763,  to  Joseph 
Blanchard  and  others,  and  the  first  settlement  was 
made  in  the  summer  of  the  next  year  by  Captain 
James  Hobart  and  Lieutenant  Zachariah  Parker,  of 
Hollis.  Other  settlers,  with  their  families,  joined 
them  in  the  autumn.  The  intervales  of  Plymouth 
were  doubtless  favorite  resorts  of  the  Indians  for 
hunting,  and,  according  to  tradition,  they  had  a  vil- 
lage or  encampment  near  the  mouth  of  Bakers  River.* 
Indian  remains  of  various  kinds  have  been  found  in 
this  vicinity. 

K  In  the  year  1712,  Captain  Baker,  of  Newbury,  led 
a  force  of  Massachusetts  rangers  up  the  Pemige- 
wasset Valley  and  surprised  a  body  of  Indians  at  this 
place,  killing  several  of  them  and  plundering  their 
wigwams  of  a  large  quantity  of  furs  the  savages 
had  collected.  According  to  a  story  of  doubtful 
authenticity.  Baker's  company  was  pursued  by 
a  larger  band  of  Indians,  but  escaped  through  a 
stratagem,  which  is  said  to  have  been  due  to  a 
friendly  redskin  who  had  accompanied  them  and 
^  Its  beautiful  Indian  name  wcis  Asquamchemauke! 
48 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

which  deceived  the  pursuers  as  to  the  number  of 
the  pursued.  After  this  foray  into  their  ancestral 
domain,  at  any  rate,  the  main  body  of  the  Pemige- 
wassets  retired  to  Canada. 

A  noted  visitor  to  this  particular  region  before  the 
time  of  its  settlement  was  the  future  hero  of  Ben- 
nington, who,  in  company  with  his  brother  William, 
David  Stinson,  and  Amos  Eastman,  was  trapping  in 
April  of  the  year  1752  within  the  limits  of  the  present 
town  of  Rumney,  north  of  Plymouth.  When  about 
to  return  home  the  party  of  trappers  were  surprised 
by  a  body  of  Indians.  John  Stark  and  Eastman  were 
easily  captured,  as  they  were  on  the  shore  of  a  lake 
(afterward  known  as  Lake  Stinson)  and  had  no 
chance  to  escape.  The  other  two  were  in  a  canoe 
and  attempted  to  get  away,  in  which  purpose 
William  Stark  alone  was  successful,  Stinson  being 
killed  by  a  musket  shot.  The  future  general  was 
taken  to  Canada,  but  was  ransomed  the  next 
autumn. 

Formerly  a  shire  town  of  Grafton  County,  Ply- 
mouth has  always  had  a  goodly  number  of  profes- 
sional men  among  its  permanent  residents,  and  the 
beauty  of  its  location  and  environment  early  at- 
tracted many  summer  visitors.  The  first  county 
courthouse,  which  was  raised  before  July,  1774,  and 
which  stood  in  the  south  part  of  the  village  until 
1876,  when  it  was  removed  to  a  new  location,  re- 
stored (it  had  been  used  as  a  wheelwright's  shop), 
and  presented  to  the  Young  Ladies'  Library  Asso- 
ciation by  a  benefactor  of  the  town,  is  historically 
interesting  as  the  place  where  Daniel  Webster  made, 

49 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

in  1806,  his  first  defense  of  a  murderer  and  de- 
livered his  "only  solitary"  plea  against  capital 
punishment.^  The  chief  business  of  the  village  was 
formerly  the  manufacture  of  gloves,  begun  in  1835. 
The  "  Plymouth  buck  gloves"  were  for  years  widely 
esteemed,  but,  following  a  number  of  years  of  pros- 
perity, the  business  gradually  declined.  After  the 
Boston,  Concord,  and  Montreal  Railroad  reached 
Plymouth  in  1850  and  located  its  general  offices 
there,  the  railroad  and  State  business,  combined 
with  the  fine  natural  advantages,  soon  rendered  the 
town  a  rich  and  thriving  one.  When  the  lease  of  this 
railroad  to  the  Boston  and  Lowell  was  made,  in 
June,  1884,  however,  the  business  offices  of  the  rail- 
road were  lost  to  Plymouth. 

One  of  the  next  places  to  be  settled  in  the  White 
Hills  was  Conway, 2  the  site  of  which  was  granted 
by  Governor  Benning  Wentworth  to  Daniel  Foster 
and  others  in  October,  1765,  on  condition  that  each 
grantee  should  pay  a  rent,  if  it  were  demanded,  of 
one  ear  of  Indian  corn  annually  for  ten  years,  and, 
after  the  end  of  that  period,  of  one  shilling  proc- 
lamation money  for  every  one  hundred  acres.  The 

*  This  was  not  the  first  plea  made  by  Webster,  as  is  usually  stated. 
The  correct  statement  of  the  matter  is  to  be  found  in  E.  S.  Stearns's 
History  of  Plymouth  (1906). 

2  I  am  indebted  for  some  facts  about  the  settlement  of  Conway  to 
an  article  on  "The  Town  of  Conway,"  by  Mrs.  Ellen  McRoberts 
Mason  in  the  Granite  Monthly  for  June,  1896.  Conway  gets  its  name, 
according  to  Sweetser,  "  from  that  gallant  old  English  statesman, 
Henry  Seymour  Conway,  Walpole's  friend,  commander  in  chief  of 
the  British  army,  and,  at  the  time  when  this  mountain  glen  was 
baptized,  a  prominent  champion  of  the  liberties  of  America." 

50 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

charter  was  for  23,040  acres  of  land,  with  the  ad- 
dition of  1040  acres  for  roads,  ponds,  mountains, 
rocks,  etc.  This  land  was  divided  into  sixty-nine 
equal  shares,  and  each  grantee,  or  his  heirs  and  as- 
signs, was  required  to  plant  and  cultivate  five  acres 
of  land  within  the  term  of  five  years,  for  each  fifty 
acres  contained  in  his  share.  Two  shares,  containing 
five  hundred  acres,  were  to  be  reserved  for  Governor 
Wentworth,  one  was  to  be  reserved  for  the  support 
of  the  gospel  in  heathen  lands,  one  for  the  Church  of 
England,  one  for  the  first  settled  minister,  and  one 
for  the  benefit  of  schools.  Soon  came  an  inflow  of 
settlers  from  Concord,  Pembroke,  Exeter,  Ports- 
mouth, Durham,  Lee,  and  other  places,  who  had 
been  led  to  remove  to  this  locality  by  the  glowing 
accounts  they  had  heard  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil 
and  of  the  abundance  of  game  and  fish.  These  set- 
tlers received  their  lands  under  the  Maine  grants  to 
General  Frye,  whose  territory,  it  was  found  on  the 
subsequent  adjustment  of  the  boundary  between 
the  province  of  New  Hampshire  and  the  province  of 
Maine,  included  more  than  four  thousand  acres  in 
New  Hampshire.  Finally,  the  general  relinquished 
his  land  in  Conway  and  selected  an  equal  number 
of  acres  in  Maine.  This  addition  of  land  to  Conway 
caused  the  area  of  that  town  to  exceed  the  number  of 
acres  granted,  and  so,  to  remedy  this  state  of  affairs, 
the  area  was  reduced  by  moving  the  northern 
boundary  line  farther  south.  By  this  strange  hap 
the  first  settlers  on  the  intervale  lands  proved  to  be 
the  first  settlers  of  Conway,  when  they  might  have 
been  expected  to  be  the  first  of  Fryeburg,  and  some 

51 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  those  early  settlers  who  would  have  been  other- 
wise citizens  of  Conway  became  citizens  of  the  town 
of  Bartlett. 

Here  on  the  intervales  an  Indian  village  or  en- 
campment had  formerly  been  situated,  —  the  relics 
found  have  been  mentioned,  —  and  the  savages 
enviously  witnessed  the  inroads  of  the  white  men 
upon  their  favorite  haunt. 

In  1766,  Foster  and  several  others  built  houses 
five  miles  farther  north  on  the  river  bottoms  and 
thus  began  the  settlement  of  the  village  and  future 
summer  resort  of  North  Conway. 

As  Conway  was  Incorporated  by  its  charter,  held 
its  first  proprietary  meeting  In  the  town  of  Chester, 
December  2,  1765,  elected  Its  officers,  and  has  ever 
since  kept  up  Its  organization,  it  was  the  first  White 
Mountain  town,  antedating  Fryeburg  by  more  than 
eleven  years. 

During  the  next  thirty  or  forty  years  most  of  the 
other  now  well-known  places  were  established.  The 
site  of  the  town  of  Jefferson  was  granted,  under 
the  name  of  Dartmouth,  to  Colonel  Goffe,  in  1765, 
and  again,  in  1772,  to  Theodore  Atkinson,  Mark  H. 
Wentworth,  and  others.  It  was  settled  about  1773 
by  Colonel  Joseph  Whipple,  who  was  the  first  set- 
tler to  come  through  the  Notch,  and  who  owned  a 
vast  area  and  exercised  for  many  years  an  almost 
feudal  sway  over  the  country  in  the  vicinity  of  his 
home.  The  town  was  incorporated  under  its  present 
name  in  1796. 

An  adventure  of  Colonel  Whipple's,  related  by 

52 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

Willey  and  others,  exhibits  his  bravery  and  re- 
sourcefulness. During  the  Revolutionary  War,  a 
party  of  Indians  under  the  control  of  the  English 
were  admitted  to  his  house,  and,  before  he  was 
aware  of  their  purpose,  the  colonel  was  made  pris- 
oner. Being  permitted  to  go  to  his  bedroom  to 
secure  some  clothes  for  his  journey  with  the  Indians, 
he  managed,  while  his  housekeeper  was  entertaining 
the  Indians  with  some  mechanical  articles,  to  make 
his  escape  from  the  window.  Going  to  a  field  where 
some  of  his  men  were  at  work,  he  ordered  each  of 
them  to  shoulder  a  stake  from  the  fence  as  he  would 
a  gun.  Thus  reinforced  the  colonel  again  presented 
himself  before  the  Indians,  who  were  in  pursuit  of 
him.  The  enemy,  seeing  as  they  supposed  a  body 
of  armed  men  approaching,  hurriedly  seized  what 
plunder  they  could  lay  their  hands  upon  and  fled. 

Among  the  defiles  at  the  head  of  Israel's  River  ^ 
tradition  locates  the  destruction  of  a  detachment 
of  Rogers's  Rangers  under  horrible  circumstances. 
In  October,  1759,  the  famous  colonial  partisan, 
having  led  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  his  vet- 
erans to  the  St.  Lawrence,  made  a  night  attack  on 
the  Indian  village  of  St.  Francis,  surprising  the  sav- 
ages when  they  were  sleeping  after  having  spent  most 
of  the  night  in  a  grand  dance.  The  village  was 
plundered  and  burned,  after  its  inhabitants  had  been 
killed  or  dispersed,  and  thus  the  errand  on  which 

*  This  river,  alas!  is  named  after  Israel  Glines,  a  noted  hunter  and 
trapper  of  this  region  in  the  eighteenth  century,  whose  brother  John 
gave  his  name  to  a  stream  which  runs  through  the  neighboring  village 
of  Whitefield.  Singrawack,  said  to  mean  "The  Foaming  Stream  of 
the  White  Rock,"  is  its  Indian  name! 

53 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Rogers  had  been  sent  by  General  Amherst  was  ac- 
complished. The  victorious  white  men  carried  off 
the  church  plate,  the  candlesticks,  and  a  large  silver 
image. ,  They  kept  together  for  about  ten  days,  when, 
their  provisions  failing,  the  rangers  broke  up  into 
small  parties  that  they  might  the  better  procure 
subsistence  by  hunting.  Two  of  these  parties  were 
overtaken  by  pursuing  bodies  of  Indians,  who  cap- 
tured or  killed  most  of  the  unfortunate  rangers.  The 
main  body,  after  enduring  extreme  suffering  from 
hunger,  finally  reached  Charlestown,  or  Number 
Four,  the  nearest  place  of  relief.  One  party  of  nine, 
which  had  the  silver  image,  attempted,  so  the  story 
goes,  to  find  a  way  of  escape  through  the  Notch, 
but  was  misled  by  a  treacherous  Indian  guide,  who 
piloted  the  unfortunate  men  into  the  gorges  of 
Israel's  River  and  fled  after  poisoning  one  of  them 
with  a  rattlesnake's  fang.  Under  terrible  hardships 
all  but  one  of  the  rangers,  it  is  said,  perished.  The 
survivor  eventually  reached  the  settlements.  The 
golden  candlesticks  of  the  church  of  St.  Francis  were 
found  near  Lake  Memphremagog  in  1816  and  the 
early  settlers  of  Coos  came  upon  various  relics  of  the 
rangers,  but  the  silver  image  has  not  been  recovered. 
Numerous  legends  have  grown  up  about  this 
romantic  episode,  the  most  beautiful  of  which  is  that 
of  a  lonely  (hunter  encamped  one  night  up  among 
the  White  Hills.  The  night  mist  rolled  back  and 
disclosed  "a  great  stone  church,  and  within  this  was 
an  altar,  where  from  a  sparkling  censer  rose  a  curl- 
ing wreath  of  incense-smoke,  and  around  it  lights 
dispersed  a  mellow  glow,  by  which  in  groups  before 

54 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

that  altar  appeared  a  tribe  of  savages  kneeling  in 
profound  silence.  A  change  came  in  the  wind ;  a  song 
long  and  loud  rose,  as  a  voice-offering  to  the  Great 
Spirit;  then  glittering  church  spire,  church  and  altar, 
vanished,  and  down  the  steep  rock  trailed  a  long  line 
of  strange-looking  men,  in  solemn  silence.  Before 
all,  as  borne  by  some  airy  sprite,  sported  a  glittering 
image  of  silver,  which  in  the  deep  shadows  changed 
to  fairy  shape,  and,  with  sparkling  wings,  disappeared 
in  the  rent  rocks."  This  was  followed  by  a  loud 
laugh  of  triumph,  whereupon  the  hunter  awoke. 

The  pathetic  story  of  Nancy,  ^  who  came  up  the 
Notch  with  Colonel  Whipple  and  who  lived  with 
his  family  in  Jefferson,  may  well  be  set  down  here. 
This  poor  girl,  whose  tragic  fate  is  recalled  by 
Nancy's  Brook,  Nancy's  Bridge,  and  Mount  Nancy, 
near  Bemis  Station  in  the  Crawford  Notch,  was  en- 
gaged to  a  farmhand  of  the  Colonel's,  who  had  com- 
pletely won  her  affections.  Her  lover  and  she  agreed 
to  go  to  Portsmouth  to  be  married.  While  she  was 
at  Lancaster,  whither  she  had  gone  to  make  prep- 
arations for  her  journey  through  the  wilderness,  the 
prospective  husband  to  whom  she  had  entrusted 
her  savings,  the  pay  for  two  years*  service,  set  out 
from  Jefferson  for  Portsmouth,  leaving  no  explana- 
tion or  message  for  her.  On  her  return  at  night  she 
resolved  to  follow  the  recreant  lover,  in  spite  of  all 

^  Her  surname  appears  to  be  somewhat  uncertain.  Frank  H. 
Burt's  Among  the  White  Mountains  (1884)  gives  it  as  Barton.  The 
same  surname  is  given  in  an  article  on  Jefferson  by  J.  M.  Cooper,  in 
the  Granite  Monthly  for  August,  1898.  The  White  Mountain  and 
Winnepissiogee  Lake  Guide  Book  (1846),  makes  it  Rogers  and  even 
gives  the  name  of  the  treacherous  lover  as  Jim  Swindell  (!). 

55 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

dissuasion,  in  the  hope  of  overtaking  him  before 
dawn  in  his  probable  camp  in  the  Notch.  But  she 
arrived  there  after  an  arduous  journey  through  the 
snow  and  in  the  teeth  of  a  northwest  wind,  only  to 
find  the  camp  abandoned.  As  the  ashes  of  the  camp- 
fire  were  still  warm,  the  dauntless  girl  determined  to 
push  on,  but  she  was  soon  compelled  to  give  up  and 
to  sink  down  in  utter  exhaustion,  near  the  brook 
which  has  been  given  her  Christian  name.  There, 
at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  she  was  found  curled  up  in  the 
snow  by  a  party  of  men  from  Colonel  Whipple's, 
who,  alarmed  for  her  safety,  had  followed  her  trail. 
The  perfidious  lover  is  said  to  have  become  insane 
on  learning  of  her  fate.  This  episode  of  Nancy, 
which  is  recorded  in  many  books  and  the  truth  of 
which  is  vouched  for  by  Ethan  Allen  Crawford  and 
by  J.  H.  Spaulding,  as  told  to  them  by  persons  who 
knew  the  facts,  is  assigned  to  the  year  1778. 

Another  servant  of  Colonel  Whipple's,  who  was 
said  to  be  the  first  of  her  sex  to  come  through  the 
Notch,  was  a  woman  who  in  her  old  age  was  known 
as  Granny  Stalbird  or  Starbird.  Having  learned 
from  the  Indians  the  virtues  of  various  roots  and 
herbs,  she  became,  after  the  death  of  her  husband, 
a  noted  doctress,  famous  all  through  this  region  for 
her  skill.  A  number  of  stories  of  her  adventures  and 
eccentricities  have  been  handed  down.  Her  memory 
was  gratefully  cherished  by  the  early  settlers  for  her 
many  deeds  of  mercy.  Among  her  patients  was 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  who  was  once  treated  by  her 
for  an  injury  to  his  foot. 

Lancaster,  named  after  Lancaster,  Massachusetts, 

56 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

whence  several  of  its  early  settlers  came,  was  granted 
in  July,  1763,  to  Captain  David  Page  and  others 
and  was  occupied  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year 
by  Captain  Page,  Edward  Bucknam,  and  Emmons 
Stockwell  and  their  families.  The  troubles  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  hindered  the  progress  of  the  new 
settlement,  all  the  inhabitants  but  Stockwell  and 
his  family  leaving  the  new  town  for  older  and  more 
secure  settlements.  Stockwell's  brave  determination 
to  stay  and  abide  the  consequences  induced  some, 
emboldened  by  his  example,  to  return. 

Littleton  was  chartered  in  November,  1764,  under 
the  name  of  Chiswick.  Among  the  grantees,  who 
were  mostly  from  southeastern  Connecticut,  was 
James  Avery,  who  had  associated  with  himself 
twelve  others  of  the  same  name  and  many  relatives 
and  who  thus  controlled  the  franchise.  This  he  dis- 
posed of  to  Colonel  Moses  Little  and  his  associates 
in  1768.  On  account  of  non-compliance  with  the 
provisions  of  the  charter,  the  town  was  rechartered  in 
January,  1770,  under  the  name  of  Apthorp.  The 
first  settlement  was  made  shortly  after  by  Captain 
Nathan  Caswell,  who  was  induced  by  the  energetic 
proprietors  of  Apthorp  to  leave  his  home  in  Orford 
and  make  a  hazard  of  new  fortunes  in  the  Am- 
monoosuc  wilderness.  Caswell  reached  his  new 
home  on  the  nth  of  April,  1770.  He  found  there 
only  a  bam,  in  which  his  son,  Apthorp,  was  bom 
that  night,  the  first  white  child  born  within  the 
limits  of  Littleton.  In  November,  1 784,  when  Dalton^ 

^  The  name  of  the  daughter  town  perpetuates  that  of  the  Honor- 
able Tristram  Dalton,  another  of  the  early  proprietors  of  Apthorp. 

57 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

was  separated  from  Apthorp  and  incorporated,  the 
name  of  the  mother  town  was  changed  to  the  pres- 
ent one,  in  honor  of  the  principal  proprietor. 

Franconia  was  granted  in  1764  under  its  present 
name  to  Jesse  Searle  and  others.  No  move  was  made 
by  them  toward  settlement,  so  a  more  extensive 
grant  was  made  in  1772  to  Sir  Francis  Bernard, 
Bart.,  His  Excellency  Thomas  Hutchinson,  the 
Honorable  Corbyn  Morris,  Esq.,  and  others,  the 
tract  being  called  Morristown  in  honor  of  the  last- 
named  gentleman.  Franconia  was  settled  perma- 
nently two  years  later  by  Captain  Artemas  Knight, 
Zebedee  Applebee,  and  others.  These  conflicting 
grants  later  gave  rise  to  much  controversy,  and  it 
was  not  until  nearly  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  that  the  dispute  was  finally  settled  in  favor 
of  the  original  grantees.  The  name  of  Franconia  was 
reassumed  in  1782. 

The  town  owed  its  early  prosperity  mainly  to  the 
discovery  of  iron  ore  in  the  vicinity.  In  December, 
1805,  a  company  was  incorporated  under  the  name 
of  the  New  Hampshire  Iron  Factory  Company.  The 
principal  works,  which  were  owned  by  this  company, 
were  situated  on  the  Gale  River  and  consisted  of  a 
blast  furnace,  a  cupola  furnace,  a  forge,  a  machine 
shop,  etc.  About  the  middle  of  the  last  century  from 
twenty  to  thirty  men  were  constantly  employed  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of  pig  iron  and  from  two 
to  three  hundred  tons  of  bar  iron  were  produced 
annually.  The  ore,  which  was  said  to  be  the  richest 
up  to  then  discovered  in  the  United  States,  was  ob- 
tained from  a  mountain  in  the  east  part  of  Lisbon, 

58. 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

about  three  miles  from  the  furnace.  The  works  have 
long  since  ^  been  abandoned,  but  the  remains  of  the 
furnace  are  plainly  to  be  seen  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  river  near  the  point  where  the  road  to  Sugar  Hill 
leaves  the  main  thoroughfare  of  Franconia.  Not  far 
from  this  establishment  were  the  upper  works,  called 
"The  Haverhill  and  Franconia  Iron  works,"  which 
were  incorporated  in  1808  and  which  were  built  on 
the  same  plan  as  the  other. 

Jackson  was  first  settled  by  Benjamin  Copp  in 
1778.2  Here  he  and  his  family  lived  alone  until  other 
settlers  came  in  1790.  Among  these  latter  was  Cap- 
tain Joseph  Pinkham  and  his  family  (after  whom 
the  Pinkham  Notch  is  named) ,  who  came  when  the 
snow  was  five  feet  deep  on  the  level.  Their  hand- 
sled,  it  is  said,  was  drawn  by  a  pig  which  had  been 
taught  to  work  in  harness.  The  settlement  was  first 
called  New  Madbury,  but,  on  its  incorporation  in 
1800,  the  name  was  changed  to  Adams.  In  1829,  to 
suit  the  prevailing  political  opinions,  the  name  was 
again  changed,  to  the  present  one. 

Berlin  was  granted  in  1771  to  Sir  William  Mayne, 
Bart.,  his  relatives,  Thomas,  Robert,  and  Edward 
Mayne,  and  several  others  from  Barbados.  Its  orig- 
inal name  was  Maynesborough,  which  was  changed 
to  the  present  one  in  1829,  when  the  town  was  in- 
corporated. 

*  About  1865,  says  a  writer  in  the  Granite  Monthly,  for  August, 
1 88 1.  According  to  another  writer  in  the  same  periodical,  operation 
was  resumed  in  1859  after  some  years  of  suspension  and  the  buildings 
were  burned  in  1884. 

"  Some  books  say  1779.  The  centennial  of  the  settlement  was 
celebrated  on  July  4,  1878. 

59 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Bartlett,  named  after  the  president  of  the  State 
at  the  date  of  the  town's  incorporation  (1790),  was 
originally  granted  to  William  Stark  and  others  for 
services  during  the  French-and- Indian  War.  Two 
brothers  by  the  name  of  Emery  and  a  Mr.  Harriman 
were  among  the  first  settlers  there.  A  few  years 
later,  in  1777,  Daniel  Fox,  Paul  Jilly,  and  Captain 
Samuel  Willey,  from  Lee,  began  a  settlement  in 
what  is  now  known  as  Upper  Bartlett. 

Whitefield  was  granted,  as  Whitefields,  to  Josiah 
Moody  and  others  in  July,  1774,  and  was  occupied 
soon  after  by  Major  Burns  and  other  settlers.  It  was 
incorporated  December  i,  1804. 

The  territory  originally  occupied  by  the  town  of 
Bethlehem  was  almost  exactly  that  of  the  lost  town 
of  Lloyd  Hills,  ^  said  to  have  been  granted  by  Gov- 
ernor Wentworth  in  or  about  1774.  This  town  had 
only  a  paper  existence,  as  the  records  of  the  grant 
are  lost  and  the  original  grantees  probably  made  no 
effort  to  settle  it.  In  the  silence  of  the  charter  rec- 
ords of  New  Hampshire  as  to  the  town,  we  know  of 
it  through  its  being  given  as  a  boundary  in  the  grant 
of  Whitefield  in  1774  and  from  its  name  appearing 
on  Holland's  map  (1784).  The  royal  government 
having  been  overthrown,  the  territory  became  the 
property  of  the  State  and  the  earlier  grant  was 
ignored. 

The  first  settlement  in  the  limits  of  the  town  was 

made  in  1790  by  Jonas  Warren,  Nathaniel  Snow, 

Amos  Wheeler,  and  others.  On  December  27,  1799, 

the  General  Court  of  New  Hampshire  incorporated 

*  Various  early  histories  say  "Lord's  Hill." 

60 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

the  town  of  Bethlehem  and  the  first  town  meeting 
was  held  March  4,  1800.  Additions  of  territory  were 
made  in  1848  and  in  1873.  The  hamlet  of  Bethlehem 
led  a  precarious  existence  in  its  early  days.  Famine 
frequently  frowned  on  the  settlement  and  in  1799  the 
inhabitants  were  reduced  to  such  straits  that  they 
were  compelled  to  make  a  load  of  potash  and  to 
send  it  to  Concord,  Massachusetts,  a  distance  of 
one  hundred  and  seventy  miles,  for  sale,  subsisting 
on  roots  and  plants  until  their  envoys  returned  with 
provisions,  four  weeks  later.  President  Dwight,  in 
1803,  found  chiefly  log  huts,  the  settlements  being 
"recent,  few,  poor,  and  planted  on  a  soil,  singularly 
rough  and  rocky."  "There is  nothing  in  Bethlehem," 
he  remarks,  "which  merits  notice,  except  the  pa- 
tience, enterprise  and  hardihood,  of  the  settlers, 
which  have  induced  them  to  venture,  and  stay,  upon 
so  forbidding  a  spot;  a  magnificent  prospect  of  the 
White  Mountains;  and  a  splendid  collection  of  other 
mountains  in  their  neighbourhood." 

Lisbon,  within  whose  limits  is  the  summer  resort 
of  Sugar  Hill,  far-famed  for  the  beauty  of  its  views, 
was  first  granted  to  Joseph  Burt  and  others  on  Au- 
gust 6, 1763,  under  the  name  later^  given  to  the  town 
which  was  to  become  the  capital  of  the  State.  Much 
of  the  same  territory  was  included  in  the  grant  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Chiswick,  made  the  following  year. 
By  the  failure  of  the  grantees  to  make  the  required 
settlements,  however,  both  grants  were  forfeited, 
and  in  October,  1768,  another  charter  was  issued,  to 

^  The  future  state  capital  received  its  present  name  in  June,  1765. 
It  had  previously  been  called  Penacook,  and  Rumford. 

61 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Leonard  Whiting  and  others,  covering  the  territory 
now  forming  the  town  of  Lisbon,  the  title  of  Gun- 
thwaite  being  bestowed  upon  the  grant.  For  some 
time  the  name  of  the  town  was  evidently  somewhat 
unsettled,  for  it  appears  in  State  documents  of 
twenty  years  later  as  "Concord,  alias  Gunthwaite." 
In  1824,  by  act  of  legislature  the  town  was  given  the 
name  it  now  bears.  The  discovery  of  gold  in  the 
town  in  1866  created  great  excitement  and  many 
mining  operations  were  set  in  motion.  Soon  the 
business  became  of  a  highly  speculative  nature,  and 
during  ten  years  the  sum  of  $1,500,000,  it  is  esti- 
mated, was  squandered  in  such  operations  in  Lisbon 
and  vicinity. 

Woodstock,  which  received  its  present  name  in 
1840  by  act  of  legislature,  was  first  granted  in  Sep- 
tember, 1763,  to  Eli  Demerit.  On  account  of  the  in- 
definiteness  or  non-preservation  of  the  records  the 
course  of  events  in  the  early  history  of  the  town  is 
somewhat  uncertain,  but  the  charter  appears  to 
have  been  forfeited  by  non- settlement  and  the  town 
to  have  been  regranted,  in  1 771,  to  Nathaniel  Cush- 
man,  Dr.  Ebenezer  Thompson,  of  Durham,  and 
others,  among  whom  was  John  Demerit,  nephew  of 
Eli,  who  had  at  least  nine  hundred  acres.  Most  of 
the  older  authorities  say  that  the  town  was  origi- 
nally granted  under  the  name  of  Peeling,  then  for  a 
time  was  called  Fairfield,  and  subsequently  bore 
again,  by  restoration,  the  name  of  Peeling,  until 
1840.  They  attribute  the  first  settlement  of  the 
town  to  John  Riant  and  others  and  make  it  date 
from  about  1773. 

62 


V  <- 


FirfST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

A  recent  writer,^  however,  states  that  the  town 
was  originally  granted  under  the  name  Fairfield  and 
that  in  1799  the  legislature  granted  a  town  charter 
under  the  name  of  Peeling,  the  first  town  meeting  of 
which  any  record  is  to  be  found  being  held  in  1800. 
The  same  authority  attributes  the  first  settlement 
to  one  James  McNorton,  whose  name  does  not  ap- 
pear in  the  early  history  of  Peeling,  but  who  is 
stated  to  have  built  a  home,  soon  after  the  original 
grant,  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Pemigewasset.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  he  joined  the  patriot 
army,  leaving  a  wife  and  children  in  his  newly  made 
home  and  being  destined  never  to  return,  perish- 
ing, it  is  said,  at  Valley  Forge.  In  all,  the  infant 
town  furnished  four  soldiers  to  the  Continental 
army. 

Randolph  was  granted  in  1772  to  John  Durand 
and  others,  of  London,  and  bore  the  name  of  its  first 
proprietor  until  1824,  when  it  received  the  name  of 
the  famous  Virginian.  Its  first  settlers  were  Joseph 
Wilder  and  Stephen  Jillson. 

Carroll,  originally  called  Bretton  Woods,  which 
name  has  recently  been  revived  and  applied  to  the 
locality  and  railroad  stations  of  two  large  summer 
hotels  in  the  limits  of  the  township,  was  granted 
February  8,  1772,  to  Sir  Thomas  Wentworth,  Bart., 
the  Reverend  Samuel  Langdon,  and  eighty-one 
others.  The  town,  whose  permanent  population  has 
always  been  small,  received  its  present  name  in 
1832,  the  year  of  its  incorporation. 

*  Justus  Conrad,  in  his  article  "The  Town  of  Woodstock,"  in  the 
Granite  Monthly  for  July,  1897. 

63 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Warren  ^  was  granted  to  John  Page,  of  Kingston, 
near  Portsmouth,  and  others,  July  14,  1763,  and 
settlement  was  commenced  in  the  autumn  of  1767 
by  Joseph  Patch,  who  came  from  Hollis,  New  Hamp- 
shire. The  territory  under  the  shadow  of  that  out- 
lying mountain,  Moosilauke,  one  of  the  finest  of 
viewpoints,  was  the  special  stamping-ground  of  the 
Pemigewassets,  a  local  sub-tribe,  or  family,  of  In- 
dians, whose  retirement  to  Canada  has  been  men- 
tioned. The  first  settlers  inherited  the  clearings  in 
which  these  red  men  used  to  plant  their  maize  and 
bury  their  dead.  The  region  had  been  the  scene  of 
much  Indian  warfare,  and  even  after  the  Indians' 
departure  and  the  advent  of  the  white  men,  the  dis- 
trict was  a  thoroughfare  for  marauding  bands  from 
Canada,  who  used  to  sweep  down  upon  the  de- 
fenseless Massachusetts  towns,  arid  for  their  white 
enemies  in  pursuing  or  making  counter-attacks. 
The  first  habitations  built  here  by  the  colonists  were 
two  log  huts  for  the  temporary  shelter  of  travelers 
journeying  to  the  Coos  country.  Patch  lived  like  a 
hunter  with  no  companion  but  a  faithful  dog.  The 
first  family,  that  of  John  Mills,  of  Portsmouth,  came 
in  the  spring  of  1768.  They  were  followed  the  next 
year  by  an  Irishman  by  the  name  of  James  Aiken, 
who  discovered  after  he  had  built  his  log  house  that 
he  had  neighbors.  Joshua  Copp  was  the  fourth  set- 
tler.  The  next  family  to  come  was  that  of  a  Mr. 

*  The  history  of  this  town  has  been  fully  dealt  with  by  William 
Little,  whose  History  of  Warren  was  published  in  1870.  The  town 
is  said  to  take  its  name  from  Admiral  Sir  Peter  Warren,  who  com- 
manded the  fleet  in  the  attack  on  Louisburg  in  1745;  it  may,  how- 
ever, have  been  named  after  a  town  of  the  same  name  in  England. 

64 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

True.  Thus  a  hamlet  was  begun.  The  charter  was 
renewed  and  a  grant  of  additional  territory  made  in 
1770. 

The  town  of  Gorham,  long  a  leading  summer  re- 
sort and  now  an  important  industrial  community, 
formed  until  its  corporation  in  1836  a  part  of  Shel- 
burne,  which  was  chartered  as  early  as  1769  and 
rechartered  in  1770,  soon  after  which  date  it  was 
settled. 

An  early  incident  in  Shelburne's  history  has  to  do 
with  an  Indian  raid.  On  August  3,  1781,  a  party  of 
six  of  the  savages  who  had  visited  Bethel  and  Gilead, 
Maine,  capturing  three  men  in  the  former  and  killing 
one  in  the  latter,  stopped  at  Shelburne  on  their  way 
to  Canada.  At  the  house  of  Captain  Rindge,  they 
killed  and  scalped  Peter  Poor,  and  took  Plato,  a 
colored  man,  prisoner.  The  inhabitants,  it  is  re- 
lated, after  spending  the  night  on  "Hark  Hill"  in 
full  hearing  of  the  whoops  and  cries  of  the  Indians, 
fled  in  a  body  to  Fryeburg,  fifty-nine  miles  distant, 
where  they  remained  until  the  danger  was  past. 

The  territory  of  the  town  of  Campton,  in  the 
Pemigewasset  Valley,  formed,  with  that  of  the 
neighboring  town  of  Rumney,  a  grant  made,  it  ap- 
pears, in  1761,  just  after  the  English  conquest  of 
Canada,  to  Jared  Spencer  of  East  Haddam,  Con- 
necticut, Christopher  Holmes,  and  others.  Camp- 
ton  took  its  name  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
proprietors  built  their  camp  within  its  limit  when 
they  came  up  to  survey  this  town  and  Rumney. 
Owing  to  the  death  of  Spencer  at  East  Windsor, 
Connecticut,  on  his  way  home  from  New  Hamp- 

65 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

shire,  in  1762,  before  any  settlement  was  made,  his 
heirs  and  others  obtained  a  new  charter  in  1767.  The 
town  was  settled  in  1765  by  two  families  by  the 
name  of  Fox  and  Taylor.  Joseph  and  Hobart 
Spencer,  two  of  the  early  settlers,  were  very  likely 
sons  of  the  original  grantee.  Though  but  in  its  in- 
fancy, the  town  furnished  nine  or  ten  soldiers  to  the 
Revolutionary  army,  five  of  whom  died  in  the  serv- 
ice. Thirty  of  its  citizens  laid  down  their  lives  in 
the  war  for  the  Union.  Campton  Village  and  West 
Campton  early  became  favorite  resorts  for  artists, 
who  are  attracted  by  the  rich  bits  of  meadow  and 
woodland  scenery  which  abound  there.  Following 
the  artists  came  literary  people  and  families  in 
search  of  the  summer  quiet  and  restfulness  not  to 
be  found  in  the  more  fashionable  mountain  resorts. 
Campton  was  a  favorite  resort  of  James  T.  and 
Annie  Fields,  and  of  Miss  Larcom.  At  West  Camp- 
ton was  located,  until  its  destruction  a  few  years  ago 
by  fire,  a  famous  inn,  the  Stag  and  Hounds,  which 
was  one  of  the  most  ancient  among  the  Mountains 
and  which  in  its  early  days  was  frequented  by 
Durand,  Gay,  Gerry,  Griggs,  Richards,  George  L. 
Brown,  and  other  landscape  painters. 

The  neighboring  town  of  Thornton  was  granted, 
in  1763,  to  the  family  from  which  it  gets  its  name, 
and  was  settled  in  1770  by  Benjamin  Hoit.  There  is 
no  village,  but  there  are  several  groups  of  farms, 
Thornton  Street,  Thornton  Center,  and  West 
Thornton. 

The  southern  outlying  wall  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains is  the  picturesque  and  lofty  Sandwich  Range, 

66 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

terminating  on  the  east  in  the  beautiful  peak  of 
Chocorua  in  Albany.  The  immense  mass  of  Sand- 
wich Dome,  the  slide-scarred  Whiteface,  and  Pas- 
saconaway,  loftiest  of  the  summits  of  this  group,  are 
other  notable  features  of  the  Range.  On  the  south- 
erly side  of  these  mountains  is  the  pleasant  town  of 
Sandwich,  which  has  attained  considerable  reputa- 
tion as  a  summer  resort.  It  was  granted  originally 
in  October,  1763,  by  Governor  Benning  Wentworth 
to  Samuel  Oilman,  Jr.,  and  others,  of  Exeter,  and 
then  contained  an  area  of  six  miles  square.  Upon 
the  representation  of  the  grantees  that  the  north  and 
west  sides  of  the  tract  were  "so  loaded  with  inac- 
cessible mountains  and  shelves  of  rocks,  as  to  be 
uninhabitable,"  an  additional  grant  of  territory  on 
the  east  and  south,  called  Sandwich  Addition,  was 
made  by  the  governor  in  September  of  the  following 
year,  bringing  the  total  area  up  to  ten  miles  square. 
The  town  was  settled  soon  after  1765,  when  Or- 
lando Weed  was  granted  by  the  proprietors  at 
Exeter  seven  hundred  acres,  seventy  pounds  of  law- 
ful money,  and  seven  cows,  on  condition  that  he 
would  settle  seven  families  in  Sandwich,  build  seven 
substantial  dwelling-houses,  and  clear  forty  acres  of 
land  within  three  years.  Among  the  first  settlers 
were  Daniel  Beede,  John  Prescott,  David  Bean, 
Jeremiah  Page,  and  Richard  Sinclair.  Members  of 
many  noted  New  England  families  later  settled  in 
the  new  township.  Soldiers  were  furnished  to  the 
Revolutionary  army,  a  Sandwich  regiment  being 
honorably  mentioned  in  the  records  of  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill.     Many  small  industries  were  early 

67 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

established,  but  they  declined  after  some  years. 
Most  of  the  descendants  of  the  original  settlers 
either  were  killed  in  the  Civil  War  or  moved  away, 
the  farms  were  taken  possession  of  by  strangers, 
and  the  town  became  mainly  a  summer  resort.  The 
picturesque  village  of  Center  Sandwich  was  another 
favorite  haunt  of  the  poet  Lucy  Larcom. 

Situated  east  of  Sandwich  and  between  the  Sand- 
wich and  Ossipee  Ranges  is  the  town  of  Tamworth, 
named  after  an  English  town  on  the  river  Tyne.  The 
township  was  granted  in  October,  1766,  to  John 
Webster,  Jonathan  Moulton,  and  others,  and  was 
first  settled  in  1771  by  Richard  Jackman,  Jonathan 
Choate,  David  Philbrick,  and  William  Eastman. 

The  early  settlers  endured  uncommon  hardships 
on  account  of  an  early  frost,  which  cut  off  nearly  all 
their  crops  and  reduced  the  families  almost  to  utter 
starvation.  The  men  were  often  obliged  to  go  thirty 
or  forty  miles  to  Gilmanton  or  to  Canterbury  for 
grain,  which  they  brought  from  thence  on  their  backs 
or  on  hand-sleds.  Amid  all  their  discouragements 
the  pioneers  resolved  not  to  abandon  the  settle- 
ment. Fortunately,  they  killed  now  and  then  a  deer 
or  other  animal  whose  flesh  was  palatable,  and 
thus  managed  to  sustain  themselves  until  they  were 
able  to  secure  permanent  relief. 

In  the  east  part  of  the  town,  on  the  Chocorua 
River,  is  the  small  hamlet  long  known  as  Tamworth 
Iron  Works,  but  now  called  Chocorua.  An  iron 
factory  was  established  here  before  the  Revolution, 
but  was  abandoned  early  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  metal  was  obtained  from  bog-iron  ore  in  the  bot- 

68 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

torn  of  Ossipee  Lake.  Here,  in  1775,  the  first  Ameri- 
can machine-made  nails  were  turned  out,  and  here 
also  the  first  American  screw-auger  was  made,  in 
1780,  Mr.  Weed,  the  maker,  having  seen  an  auger 
on  a  British  prize  frigate  at  Portsmouth.  Many 
anchors  were  cast  at  Tamworth  and  were  hauled 
thence  to  Portsmouth  on  sledges. 

On  account  of  the  noble  mountain  scenery,  the 
pleasant  lowlands,  and  the  beautiful  lakes,  Tam- 
worth has  been  a  favorite  resort  of  nature-lovers. 
Near  Chocorua  Lake  are  the  summer  residences 
of  the  late  Horace  E.  Scudder,  the  late  Professor 
William  James,  the  late  Frank  Bolles,  Secretary  of 
Harvard  University,  and  others.  In  the  closing  years 
of  his  life  ex- President  Cleveland  found  a  summer 
home  in  Tamworth. 

Such  are  the  facts,  for  the  most  part  in  brief  state- 
ment, as  to  the  settlement  and  early  history  of  the 
principal  towns  in  the  Mountains.  The  later  history 
of  the  towns  is  largely  bound  up  with  the  story  of  the 
region's  industrial  development  and  so  will  be  dealt 
with  only  as  a  part  of  this  wider  subject.  In  some 
cases,  however,  an  event  of  recent  occurrence,  un- 
related to  any  general  movement,  has  for  conveni- 
ence been  narrated,  out  of  chronological  order,  in 
the  foregoing  pages. 


IV 

FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 
II.   THE   SOLITARY   PLACES  —  THE  WILLEY  DISASTER 

The  main  interest  of  White  Mountain  settlement, 
however,  Hes  aside  from  the  history  of  the  founding 
of  the  towns.  It  centers  about  the  settlements  made 
in  the  isolated  places,  such  as  Nash  and  Sawyer's 
Location  and  the  Notch,  where  various  individuals 
of  hardy  spirit  established  themselves;  or,  rather, 
the  main  interest  lies  in  the  settlers  themselves  of 
these  localities  and  in  the  story  of  their  hardships 
and  of  their  perseverance.  The  names  of  Crawford, 
Rosebrook,  and  Willey  are  the  most  famous  ones 
in  this  connection,  and  the  days  of  the  families  of 
these  names  are  the  heroic  days  of  White  Mountain 
history. 

In  1792,  Eleazar  Rosebrook,  a  native  of  Grafton, 
Massachusetts,  settled  with  his  family  in  Nash  and 
Sawyer's  Location,  in  a  then  remote  and  lonesome 
spot  in  the  valley  of  the  Ammonoosuc,  near  the  site 
of  the  present  Fabyan  House,  now  such  a  busy  rail- 
road center  in  the  summer.  About  1775,  he  had  come 
from  Grafton  with  his  wife  and  child  into  the  re- 
mote district  known  as  Upper  Coos,  making  a  tem- 
porary stay  at  Lancaster  until  he  could  look  about 
and  find  such  a  place  as  he  desired  in  which  to  set- 
tle. Pushing  through  the  woods  up  the  Connecticut 
River  into  what  is  now  Colebrook  (then  known 

70 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

as  Monadnock),  he  built  a  log  cabin  to  which  he 
brought  his  wife  and  two  small  children  —  a  second 
child,  a  daughter,  had  been  born  to  them  at  Lan- 
caster. Hannah  Rosebrook  was  a  true  helpmate  for 
such  a  sturdy  pioneer,  and  she  cheerfully  endured 
the  hardships  and  privations  which  their  living  in 
this  solitary  wilderness  entailed.  The  narration  of 
one  or  two  homely  incidents  of  their  life  here  will 
show  the  mettle  of  this  couple.  They  had  taken  with 
them  a  cow,  and,  as  there  were  no  fences,  the  animal 
was  at  liberty  to  go  where  she  pleased.  Many  times 
Mrs.  Rosebrook,  when  her  husband  was  away,  would 
shut  her  older  child  up  in  the  house,  and,  taking 
her  infant  in  her  arms,  would  go  in  search  of  the 
animal,  to  which  a  bell  was  attached  to  enable  her 
to  be  found.  Expeditions  of  this  nature  would  some- 
times take  the  courageous  woman  far  into  the  woods 
and  force  her  to  wade  the  river  to  get  to  the  animal, 
but  she  never  flinched  from  any  hardship  of  this 
sort.  Salt  was  an  article  much  needed  in  this  coun- 
try and  some  families  suffered  considerably  from 
lack  of  it.  Once,  when  there  was  a  shortage  of  this 
commodity,  Rosebrook  went  on  foot  to  Haverhill 
and  returned,  a  distance  of  about  eighty  miles,  with 
a  bushel  of  it  on  his  back.  This  was  not  regarded  by 
this  powerful  and  resolute  man  as  any  great  feat. 

Rosebrook  served  in  the  army  during  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  Before  he  left  to  join  his  company, 
the  pioneer  took  his  family  for  safety  to  North- 
umberland, where  a  sort  of  fort  had  been  built. 
Here  a  son  was  born.  A  man  named  White,  who  had 
an  invalid  wife,  thereupon  kindly  took  Mrs.  Rose- 

71 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

brook  and  her  children  into  his  house,  giving  them 
their  board  for  what  household  service  Mrs.  Rose- 
brook  could  give.  During  a  leave  of  absence  from 
the  army,  Rosebrook  removed  his  family  to  Guild- 
hall, Vermont.  He  rendered  brave  service  in  the 
army.  On  one  occasion  an  officer  and  he  had  a  nar- 
row escape  from  capture  when  they  were  sent  to 
Canada  as  spies,  their  pursuers  being  outwitted  by 
a  clever  stratagem  of  Rosebrook's. 

While  her  husband  was  in  the  army,  Indians  fre- 
quently came  to  the  house  where  Mrs.  Rosebrook 
was  staying,  and  she  had  to  tolerate  their  presence, 
as  she  feared  to  incur  their  displeasure  when  there 
was  no  man  to  resist  them.  On  one  occasion,  how- 
ever, when  they  had  become  intoxicated,  she  cleared 
her  house  of  them,  even  dragging  one  drunken  squaw 
out  by  the  hair  of  the  head,  and  narrowly  escaping 
a  tomahawk  thrown  by  the  angry  female,  who,  when 
sober,  came  back  next  day,  begged  Mrs.  Rose- 
brook's  forgiveness,  and  promised  amendment, 
which  promise,  it  is  said,  was  strictly  kept. 

At  Guildhall  the  Rosebrooks  remained  for  many 
years  in  comparative  comfort,  but  at  length,  life 
having  become  too  easy,  the  pioneer  determined  to 
move  again,  making  in  January,  1792,  the  change 
already  mentioned.  At  the  place  to  which  he  then 
came,  his  son-in-law,  Abel  Crawford,  was  living 
alone  in  a  small  hut,  he  having  bought  out  three  or 
four  settlers  who  had  decided  to  leave.  Mr.  Rose- 
brook in  turn  bought  Crawford  out,  and,  soon  after, 
the  latter,  "rather  than  to  be  crowded  by  neigh- 
bors," moved  twelve  miles  down  the  Saco  River 

72 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

into  Hart's  Location,  near  the  present  Bemis  Sta- 
tion, where  he  lived  to  a  great  age,  known  and  loved 
as  the  "  Patriarch  of  the  Mountains."  Here  he  built, 
some  time  previous  to  1820,  the  Mount  Crawford 
House,  which  was  kept  for  many  years  by  his  son-in- 
law,  Nathaniel  T.  P.  Davis,  and  whose  site  is  east 
of  the  railroad  track  at  Bemis. 

Rosebrook  lived  in  his  new  place  of  abode  for  a 
number  of  years  in  a  small  log  cabin.  At  length, 
having  sold  his  farm  in  Guildhall,  he  laid  out  the 
proceeds  on  his  property  here.  The  turnpike  through 
the  Notch  was  incorporated,  as  has  been  stated,  in 
1803.  It  was  some  time  in  that  year  that  Rose- 
brook,  as  travel  and  business  had  increased,  built 
a  large  and  convenient  two-story  dwelling,  with  two 
rooms  underground,  on  the  high  mound  afterwards 
called  the  "Giant's  Grave."  He  also  built  a  large 
barn,  stables,  sheds,  and  mills.  This  house  in  the 
Ammonoosuc  Valley,  at  the  present  Fabyan  station, 
was  the  first  house  for  the  accommodation  of 
travelers  erected  in  the  White  Mountains.  Here 
Rosebrook  lived  and  prospered  for  the  rest  of  his 
days.  He  died  in  1817,^  at  seventy  years  of  age, 
from  a  cancer,  after  patiently  enduring  great  suf- 
fering. 

^  The  inscription  on  his  headstone  in  the  little  cemetery  on  the 
knoll  near  Fabyan  reads  as  follows:  — 

"In  memory  of  Cap.  EHezer  Rosbrook  [sic]  who  died  Sept.  25, 
181 7  in  the  70  year  of  his  age. 

"When  I  lie  buried  deep  in  dust, 
My  flesh  shall  be  thy  care. 
These  with'ring  limbs  with  thee  I  trust 
To  raise  them  strong  and  fair." 

The  headstone  to  his  wife's  grave,  on  which  the  name  is  spelled 
correctly,  states  that  she  died  May  4,  1829,  aged  84. 

73 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

President  Dwight,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  stayed 
overnight  at  Rosebrook's  on  his  first  journey  to  the 
Mountains,  thus  speaks  of  his  host:  — 

This  man,  with  a  spirit  of  enterprise  and  industry,  and 
perseverance,  which  has  surmounted  obstacles,  demanding 
more  patience  and  firmness,  than  are  in  many  instances 
required  for  the  acquisition  of  empire,  planted  himself  in 
this  spot,  in  the  year  1788.  .  .  .  Here  he  stationed  himself 
in  an  absolute  wilderness;  and  was  necessitated  to  look  for 
everything  which  was  either  to  comfort  or  support  life, 
to  those,  who  lived  at  least  twenty  miles  from  him,  and  to 
whom  he  must  make  his  way  without  a  road.  By  his  in- 
dustry he  has  subdued  a  farm  of  one  hundred  and  fifty, 
or  two  hundred  acres;  and  built  two  large  barns,  the  very 
boards  of  which  he  must  have  transported  from  a  great 
distance  with  such  expense  and  difficulty,  as  the  inhab- 
itants of  older  settlements  would  think  intolerable.  .  .  . 
Hitherto  he  has  lived  in  a  log  hut ;  in  which  he  has  enter- 
tained most  of  the  persons  traveling  in  this  road  during 
the  last  eight  years.  .  .  .  For  the  usual  inconveniences  of 
a  log  house  we  were  prepared ;  but  we  found  comfortable 
beds,  good  food,  and  excellent  fare  for  our  horses;  all 
furnished  with  as  much  good-will,  as  if  we  had  been  near 
friends  of  the  family.  Our  entertainment  would  by  most 
Englishmen,  and  not  a  small  number  of  Americans,  be 
regarded  with  disdain.  To  us  it  was  not  barely  comfort- 
able; it  was,  in  the  main,  pleasant.  .  .  .  During  twelve  out 
of  fourteen  years,  this  honest,  industrious  man  laboured 
on  his  farm  without  any  legal  title.  The  proprietor  ^  was 
an  inhabitant  of  New  York;  and  sold  him  the  land  through 
the  medium  of  an  agent.  When  he  bought  it,  the  agent 
promised  to  procure  a  deed  for  him  speedily.  Through- 
out this  period  he  alternately  solicited,  and  was  promised, 
the  conveyance,  which  had  been  originally  engaged.  Nor 

^  This  is  diflferent  from  what  is  given  on  a  preceding  page,  which 
is  taken  from  the  Crawford  History,  the  chief  source  for  information 
about  Rosebrook  and  Ethan  Allen  Crawford. 

74 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

did  he  resolve,  until  he  had  by  building  and  cultivation 
encreased  the  value  of  his  farm  twenty  fold,  to  go  in  per- 
son to  New  York,  and  demand  a  deed  of  the  proprietor 
himself.  The  truth  is;  he  possesses  the  downright  un- 
suspecting integrity,  which,  even  in  men  of  superior  un- 
derstanding often  exposes  them  to  imposition,  from  a  con- 
fidence honourable  to  themselves,  but,  at  times,  unhappily 
misplaced.  Here,  however,  the  fact  was  otherwise:  for  the 
proprietor  readily  executed  the  conveyance,  according  to 
the  terms  of  the  original  bargain.  In  my  journey  of  1803, 
I  found  Rosebrook  in  possession  of  a  large,  well-built 
farmer's  house,  mills  and  various  other  conveniences;  and 
could  not  help  feeling  a  very  sensible  pleasure  at  finding 
his  industry,  patience,  and  integrity  thus  rewarded. 

Rosebrook  left  his  property  to  his  grandson, 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  who,  with  his  cousin  and, 
later,  wife,  Lucy  Howe,  had  tenderly  cared  for  his 
grandfather  in  his  last  illness.  Crawford,  whose 
grave,  situated  in  the  little  cemetery  ^  not  far  from 
the  Fabyan  House  and  marked  with  a  modest  shaft, 
is  seen  yearly  by  thousands,  was  the  most  famous  of 
the  pioneers  of  the  White  Mountains.  From  his 
great  strength  and  his  stature  —  Starr  King  and 
others  say  "He  grew  to  be  nearly  seven  feet  in 
height,"  but  a  daughter  affirms  that  he  stood  just 
six  feet  two  and  one-half  inches  in  his  stockings  — 
he  was  known  as  the  "Giant  of  the  Hills."  He  was 
bom  in  1792  in  Guildhall,  Vermont.  When  he  was 

*  What  more  fitting  resting-place  for  the  remains  of  the  pioneer 
could  have  been  found !  Here  he  lies  near  the  site  of  his  hotel  and  in 
view  of  the  Notch  named  after  his  family  and  of  the  mountain  up 
which  so  many  times  he  guided  persons.  This  is  truly  a  hallowed 
spot,  containing,  as  it  does,  the  dust  of  four  such  noble  men  and 
women  as  Eleazar  and  Hannah  Rosebrook  and  Ethan  Allen  and  Lucy 
Crawford.  , 

^  '  ■  ■     I  (  '' 

■b  nv  "-'-  *•  •'*■*<'    i't  ■'■*■ 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

an  infant,  his  parents,  as  we  have  seen,  moved  to 
Hart's  Location  in  New  Hampshire  and  Hved  in  a 
log  house  in  the  wilderness,  twelve  miles  from  neigh- 
bors in  one  direction  and  six  miles  in  the  other.  Here 
he  grew  up  in  circumstances  that  made  him  tough 
and  healthy.  In  1811,  he  enlisted  as  a  soldier  for 
eighteen  months.  Soon  he  was  taken  sick  with  what 
he  called  "spotted  fever,"  and,  when  he  was  recov- 
ering, he  started  for  home  on  a  furlough,  reaching 
there,  traveling  mostly  on  foot,  in  fourteen  days. 
After  regaining  his  health,  he  returned  to  his  duty. 
Upon  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  service,  he  en- 
gaged in  various  occupations,  such  as  making  roads, 
working  on  a  river,  and  farming.  On  the  8th  and 
9th  of  June,  1 815,  he  records  that  the  ground  froze 
and  snow  fell  to  the  depth  of  a  foot  or  more,  lasting 
for  two  days,  during  which  he  drew  logs  to  a  saw- 
mill with  four  oxen.  His  extraordinary  strength  ap- 
pears from  his  being  able  to  lift  a  barrel  of  potash 
weighing  five  hundred  pounds  and  to  put  it  into 
a  boat,  hoisting  it  two  feet.  There  was  only  one 
other  man  of  those  working  with  him  who  could  do 
more  than  lift  one  end  of  the  barrel.  He  had  settled 
in  Louisville,  New  York,  near  a  brother,  and  had 
got  a  good  start  when,  in  1816,  a  letter  was  received 
from  his  grandfather  Rosebrook,  telling  of  his  illness 
and  asking  for  one  of  them  to  come  to  live  with  him. 
Ethan  went  to  visit  his  grandfather,  not  intending 
to  stay  permanently  with  him,  but  when  the  af- 
flicted old  man  entreated  him  with  tears  to  make 
his  future  home  here,  Ethan's  determination  to  re- 
main in  Louisville  was  overcome.  Returning  to  that 

76 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

place,  he  sold  his  property  there  and  came  back  to 
his  grandparents,  assuming  the  indebtedness  on  the 
farm  and  taking  care  of  them,  as  has  been  noted. 
Then  began  his  connection  with  the  region  in  whose 
early  annals  he  played  so  important  a  part. 

In  July,  1818,  less  than  a  year  after  his  grand- 
father's death,  while  Crawford  was  absent,  his 
house  took  fire  and  burned  to  the  ground,  causing 
him  a  loss  from  which  he  was  never  able  to  recover. 
With  the  help  of  his  neighbors,  a  small  house, 
twenty-four  feet  square,  which  belonged  to  him  and 
was  situated  one  and  a  half  miles  distant,  was  drawn 
by  oxen  to  the  site  of  the  burned  house.  This  was 
fitted  up  so  as  to  be  a  comfortable  home  for  the 
winter  of  1819.  In  it  he  entertained  individuals  who 
came  along,  as  best  he  could,  but  parties  were  com- 
pelled to  go  to  his  father's,  eight  miles  from  the 
Notch,  for  accommodation.  From  year  to  year  he 
struggled  along,  working  at  various  occupations, 
such  as  assisting  travelers  up  and  down  the  Notch, 
guiding  people  up  Mount  Washington,  and  building 
paths,  endeavoring  all  the  while  to  lighten  the 
pecuniary  burden  which  he  was  carrying. 

In  1 819,  with  his  father,  he  opened  the  first  path 
to  Mount  Washington,  which  started  from  the  site 
of  the  present  Crawford  House,  and  which  was  im- 
proved into  a  bridle  path  by  Thomas  J.  Crawford 
in  1840.  This  trail  was  advertised  in  the  news- 
papers and  soon  visitors  began  to  come.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  1820,  a  party  consisting  of  Adino  N.  Brackett, 
John  W.  Weeks,  General  John  Wilson,  Charles  J. 
Stuart,   Noyes  S.  Dennison,  Samuel  A.   Pearson, 

77 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

all  of  Lancaster,  and  Philip  Carrigain,  "the  author 
of  the  New  Hampshire  Map"  (as  Mr.  Crawford 
quaintly  puts  it) ,  made  the  ascent  of  the  chief  peak 
of  the  Presidential  Range  and  gave  names  to  such 
peaks  as  were  unnamed.  These  were  Adams,  Jef- 
ferson, Madison,  Monroe,  Franklin,  and  Pleasant. 
They  engaged,  as  guide  and  baggage-carrier,  Mr. 
Crawford,  who  has  given  a  brief  account  of  the  ex- 
pedition, which  is  enlivened  by  a  quiet  humor.  He 
was,  he  says,  "loaded  equal  to  a  pack  horse,"  as  the 
"party  of  distinguished  characters"  wished  to  be 
prepared  to  stay  two  nights.  They  reached  the  top 
of  Washington  via  the  Notch,  where  they  stayed 
some  hours  enjoying  the  prospect  and  naming  the 
peaks  as  aforesaid.  Descending  to  a  lower  level,  they 
spent  one  night.  Mr.  Crawford  recorded  that  he  was 
"tired  to  the  very  bone"  that  night  through  being 
compelled  virtually  to  carry  one  member  of  the 
party,  "a  man  of  two  hundred  weight,"  who  for 
some  reason  was  not  able  to  get  along  without  his 
assistance.  About  a  month  later,  Brackett,  Weeks, 
and  Stuart,  accompanied  by  Richard  Eastman, 
spent  a  week  in  leveling  to  the  tops  of  all  these 
mountains  from  Lancaster,  camping  on  them  four 
nights,  one  of  which,  that  of  August  31,  was  passed 
on  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington.  The  height 
of  the  highest  peak  was  computed  by  them  to  be 
6428  feet. 

The  following  summer,  Crawford  cut  a  new  and 
shorter  path  ^  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington, 

*  This  path  was  made  passable  to  horses  by  Horace  Fabyan  soon 
after  1840  and  was  known  thereafter  as  the  Fabyan  Bridle  Path. 

78 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

which  went  directly  up  over  a  course  nearly  the 
same  as  that  of  the  present  railroad.  On  August  31 
of  the  same  year  (1821),  three  young  ladies,  the 
Misses  Austin,  formerly  of  Portsmouth,  came  to 
Crawford's  house  to  ascend  the  hills,  as  they  wished 
to  have  the  honor  of  being  the  first  women  to  reach 
the  top  of  Mount  Washington.  They  were  accom- 
panied by  their  brother,  a  friend  of  the  family,  and 
a  tenant  on  their  farm  in  Jefferson.  They  went  as 
far  as  Crawford's  first  camp  that  night,  but,  bad 
weather  coming  on,  they  could  go  no  farther,  and 
were  compelled  to  stay  there  until  a  more  favorable 
day  should  come.  When  their  stock  of  provisions 
began  to  fail,  Mr.  Faulkner,  the  tenant,  returned  to 
Crawford's  house  and  asked  the  pioneer  to  go  to 
their  relief.  Mr.  Crawford  had  severely  injured  him- 
self with  an  axe  when  cutting  the  path,  and  was 
lame  in  consequence,  but  he  nevertheless  went  to 
their  assistance  and  accompanied  them  to  the  top, 
where  they  had  the  good  fortune  to  have  a  splendid 
clear  view.  The  ladies  are  said  to  have  felt  richly 
repaid  for  the  discomfort  and  hardship  entailed  in 
a  journey  under  such  unfavorable  conditions.  They 
were  out,  all  told,  five  days. 

Mr.  Crawford  built  in  July,  1823,  three  small 
stone  huts  on  Mount  Washington,  but,  owing  to  the 
dampness  of  the  place  where  they  were  located,  they 
were  little  used.  The  ruined  walls  of  one  may  still 
be  seen  near  the  Gulf  Tank  on  the  railroad. 

In  the  spring  of  1824,  Mr.  Crawford  built  and 
raised  a  frame,  thirty-six  by  forty  feet,  the  outside  of 
which  was  in  the  autumn  finished  and  painted.  This 

79 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

addition,  the  interior  work  on  which  was  completed 
in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1825,  was  ready  for  the 
accommodation  of  the  summer  guests  of  the  latter 
year.  He  thought  his  house  with  this  enlargement 
would  be  sufficiently  commodious  to  take  care  of  all 
who  would  be  likely  to  come,  but  in  a  few  years,  such 
was  the  increase  in  the  number  of  visitors,  another 
addition  was  imperatively  demanded.  Sometimes 
the  guests  were  so  numerous  that  they  could  be  ac- 
commodated for  the  night  only  at  great  inconveni- 
ence to  the  family. 

After  considerable  delay  and  much  consideration, 
Mr.  Crawford,  although  he  was  in  debt,  and  would 
get,  by  such  a  step,  more  involved,  finally  decided  to 
build  again ;  so,  having  succeeded  in  getting  a  loan, 
in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1832  he  bought  and  drew 
the  lumber  and  other  materials  for  an  addition. 
This  was  raised  in  May,  and  before  the  last  of  July 
the  outside  was  finished  and  painted.  It  was  sixty 
feet  long  and  forty  feet  wide,  consisted  of  two  stories, 
and  was  provided  with  two  verandas,  that  on  the 
Mount  Washington  side  being  two-storied  and 
extending  the  entire  length  of  the  building.  The 
plastering  and  papering  were  postponed  until  the 
next  year,  in  the  summer  of  which  the  addition  was 
first  used. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Crawford  was  much  an- 
noyed by  the  encroachment  of  the  new  proprietor  of 
an  establishment  for  the  entertainment  of  travelers 
which  had  been  erected  three  quarters  of  a  mile  be- 
low his  house.  This  man,  who  bought  the  place  in 
the  autumn  of  1831  and  took  possession  of  it  the 

80 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

following  January,  acted  in  such  a  clandestine  man- 
ner toward  Mr.  Crawford  in  the  matter  of  acquiring 
and  occupying  the  property,  that  the  latter,  who 
was  prepared  to  be  neighborly,  was  much  offended. 
Moreover,  the  rival  landlord  made  use  of  the  moun- 
tain road  which  Mr.  Crawford  had  constructed  at 
great  expense  of  money  and  labor,  and  tried  by  false 
representations  to  the  authorities  at  Washington 
to  have  the  post-office  taken  away  from  Crawford's 
house  and  transferred  to  his  own. 

This  rival  hotel,  which  appears  to  have  been  on 
the  site  of  the  present  White  Mountain  House,  ^  did 
not,  however,  interfere  with  Crawford's  summer 
business,  and  for  a  number  of  years  the  sturdy 
pioneer  continued  to  entertain  visitors  and  to  con- 
duct individuals  or  parties  up  the  paths  he  had 
made. 

At  length,  seriously  involved  in  pecuniary  dif- 
ficulties and  broken  down  in  health,  Crawford,  on 
the  advice  of  some  friends  and  of  members  of  his 
family,  decided  to  give  up  his  farm  and  to  retire  to 
a  more  secluded  place,  where  health  might  be  re- 
gained. Hard  as  it  was  for  him  to  leave  the  spot 
where  he  had  lived  twenty  years,  had  worked  so 

^  The  distance,  as  given  in  the  text,  and  the  additional  statement 
of  Mr.  Crawford,  that  Mount  Washington  could  not  be  seen  from  it 
on  account  of  Mount  Deception  intervening,  point  to  this  conclusion. 
The  English  traveler  Coke  speaks  of  it  as  displaying  a  gayly  painted 
sign  of  a  lion  and  an  eagle,  "looking  unutterable  things  at  each  other 
from  opposite  sides  of  the  globe,"  and  as  having  already  attracted 
numerous  guests.  He  declares  that  the  spirit  of  rivalry  had  proved  of 
some  service  to  Mr.  Crawford,  as  it  had  "incited  him  to  make  con- 
siderable additions  to  his  own  house,  all  of  which  were  run  up  with 
true  American  expedition." 

8l 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

hard,  and,  as  he  says,  "had  done  everything  to 
make  the  mountain  scenery  fashionable,"  and  dis- 
tressing as  it  was  to  let  the  property  go  into  the 
possession  of  others,  he  bravely  accepted  his  lot,  and, 
having  made  an  arrangement  with  his  brother-in- 
law  to  change  situations  with  him  for  a  time,  he 
moved  to  a  farm  at  Guildhall,  Vermont,  his  birth- 
place. This  removal  took  place  in  1837,  the  year 
which  is  signalized  in  White  Mountain  hotel  his- 
tory by  the  establishment  in  the  landlordship  of 
Crawford's  old  hostelry  of  the  man  who  was  to  give 
his  name  to  the  railroad  center  that  was  to  rise  at 
this  place,  —  Horace  Fabyan,  of  Portland,  of  whom 
more  will  be  said  later. 

After  Crawford  had  remained  on  his  brother-in- 
law's  place  ten  months,  where  he  raised  barely 
enough  to  support  his  family,  Mr.  Howe  was  com- 
pelled to  lease  the  Crawford  farm  at  the  Giant's 
Grave,  which  was  put  into  other  hands.  As  he 
wanted  his  own  place  at  Guildhall  to  live  on,  Craw- 
ford again  had  to  move.  Fortunately,  he  was  al- 
lowed to  take  the  use  of  an  unoccupied  dwelling, 
one  mile  farther  down  the  Connecticut  River,  and 
by  various  arrangements  he  was  permitted  to  live 
for  a  number  of  years  on  this  "beautiful  farm," 
which  included  the  site  of  his  grandmother's  home 
and  the  scene  of  her  adventures  with  the  Indians. 

The  fifth  year  a  lawyer  in  Lancaster  obtained 
a  lease  of  the  place  and  thereafter  Crawford  was 
obliged  to  give  him  half  of  what  he  raised.  This 
condition  not  pleasing  him  and  his  family,  he  deter- 
mined to  make  a  change;  so,  in  1843,  he  hired  the 

82 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

large  three-story  dwelling,^  then  empty,  which  was 
in  sight  of  where  he  had  formerly  lived  at  the  Moun- 
tains. There  he  passed  the  remainder  of  his  days. 

In  spite  of  his  strength  and  wonderful  endurance, 
Crawford  was  not  destined  to  be  long-lived.  Worn 
out  by  the  hardships  of  his  early  life  and  by  the  suf- 
fering caused  by  bodily  ailments  and  by  distress  and 
anxiety  due  to  the  pecuniary  embarrassments  of  his 
later  life,  he  died  prematurely  on  June  22,  1846,  at 
the  age  of  fifty-four.^  He  was  a  man  of  fine  qualities 
—  "one  of  nature's  noblemen,"  says  Willey.  His 
wife,  Lucy  Crawford,  was  a  fitting  mate  for  such  a 
hardy  and  brave  man.  Other  members  of  the  Craw- 
ford family  were  of  the  same  sturdy  type.  Ethan's 
father,  Abel,  has  already  been  mentioned.  In  his 
younger  days  he  sometimes  acted  as  guide  to  per- 
sons who  wished  to  climb  Mount  Washington.  In 
September,  181 8,  he  performed  this  service  for  John 
Brazer,  of  Cambridge,  and  George  Dawson,  of 
Philadelphia,  whose  expedition  deserves  mention 

^  This  building,  the  inn  of  his  unneighborly  rival  of  the  early 
thirties,  stood  on  the  site  of  the  present  White  Mountain  House,  a 
portion  of  which  it  still  forms. 

*  Both  the  headstone  and  the  granite  shaft  in  the  cemetery  give 
his  age  at  death  as  fifty-two.  The  Crawford  History  states,  at  the 
beginning  of  chapter  ii,  that  he  was  born  in  1792,  and  on  page  187, 
in  giving  the  family  genealogy,  Crawford  says,  "Ethan  Allen  is  my 
name,  and  I  am  fifty-three."  The  shaft  of  granite  was  erected  in 
memory  of  Crawford  and  of  his  wife,  who  died  February  17,  1869, 
aged  seventy-six.  Crawford's  headstone  bears  the  following  interest- 
ing inscription:  —  "In  Memory  of  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  who  died 
June  22,  A.D.  1846;  aged  52. 

"  He  built  here  the  first  Hotel  at  the  White  Mountains,  of  which  he 
was  for  many  years  the  owner  and  Landlord. 

"He  was  of  great  native  talent  &  sagacity,  of  noble,  kind,  and 
benevolent  disposition,  a  beloved  husband  and  father,  and  an  honest 
&  good  man." 

83 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

because  of  the  amusing  fact  that  they  nailed  to 
a  rock  a  brass  plate  ^  with  a  Latin  inscription  en- 
graved on  it  as  a  record  (of  course,  calmly  prepared 
some  time  beforehand)  of  their  ascent,  the  antici- 
pated achievement  and  arduousness  of  which  were 
evidently  realized. 

Another  ascent  under  the  guidance  of  the  future 
"Patriarch"  is  pleasantly  narrated  by  Grenville 
Mellen,  the  poet  and  miscellaneous  writer,  who  was 
one  of  the  participants  in  the  excursion.  This  "pil- 
grimage" was  made  in  August,  1819  (the  year  of  the 
opening  of  the  bridle  path),  and  was  from  Portland 
through  Fryeburg  to  the  top  of  Mount  Washington 
(the  party  camped  out  one  night  "in  a  rude-fash- 
ioned camp"  part-way  up  the  trail),  and  over  the 
same  route  in  returning.  The  chronicler  portrays  his 
guide  and  host,  who,  he  says,  "received  us  with  a 
wintry  smile  (he  never  laughed,  in  the  world!)  and 
a  sort  of  guttural  welcome,"  in  the  following  some- 
what rhetorical  paragraph :  — 

Crawford  has  no  compeer.  He  stands  alone;  and  we 
found  him,  in  all  the  unapproachableness  of  his  singu- 
larity. We  defy  Cruikshanks  [sic]  to  hit  him;  and  paint- 
ing and  poetry  would  despair,  before  such  a  subject.  What 
we  shall  say,  in  downright  prose,  will  be  mere  attempt. 
If  you  wish  to  unfold  him,  and  his  sons,  go  and  hire  him, 
or  them,  as  guides;  and  let  them  act  themselves  out  before 
you,  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Mount  Washington. 

It  was  he,  who  in  1840,  at  seventy- five  years  of 
age,  made  the  first  ascent  of  Mount  Washington  on 

*  This  brass  plate  remained  intact  on  the  summit  until  July,  1825, 
when  it  was  carried  off  by  some  vandals  from  Jackson. 

84 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

horseback.  At  eighty,  he  could,  it  is  said,  walk  with 
ease  five  miles,  before  breakfast,  to  his  son's  house. 
He  constantly  attended  the  sessions  of  the  New 
Hampshire  Legislature,  in  which  he  was  a  repre- 
sentative of  his  district,  when  eighty-two  years  of 
age.  A  man  of  great  good-humor,  it  was  his  pleasure, 
after  he  was  confined  to  the  house,  to  entertain 
visitors  with  amusing  and  interesting  anecdotes. 
He  died  at  eighty-five,  having  survived,  it  will  be 
noted,  his  son  Ethan  by  several  years.  His  length 
of  days  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the  latter's  short 
life. 

His  eight  sons  were  all,  it  is  affirmed,  more  than 
six  feet  tall,  and  Ethan  was  not  alone  in  his  en- 
dowment of  unusual  physical  strength.  Thomas  J. 
Crawford,  already  spoken  of  as  a  pathbuilder,  kept 
from  1829  to  1852  the  Notch  House,  which  was 
built  in  1828  by  Ethan  and  their  father  and  which 
stood  between  the  present  Crawford  House  and  the 
Gate  of  the  Notch,  its  site  being  marked  to-day  by  a 
signboard.  About  1846  he  constructed  the  carriage 
road  up  Mount  Willard. 

The  tragic  episode  of  the  destruction  of  the  house- 
hold of  Samuel  Willey,  Jr.,  in  the  Crawford  Notch 
has  been  many  times  narrated  —  most  fully  by  the 
householder's  brother,  the  Reverend  Benjamin  G. 
Willey,  who  devotes  two  chapters  of  his  "Incidents 
in  White  Mountain  History"  to  this  unhappy  event. 
The  lonely  and  awe-inspiring  place  of  the  disaster, 
and  the  fact  that  the  slide  caused  the  greatest  loss 
of  life  of  any  accident  or  natural  disturbance  that 
has  occurred  in  the  White  Mountain  region,  and  the 

85 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

further  fact  that  an  entire  household  perished,  have 
attached  a  melancholy  interest  to  the  event  and  its 
scene  and  have  drawn  to  them  an  amount  of  atten- 
tion which  may  seem  disproportionate  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  occurrence.  However  this  may  be, 
it  is  certain  that  the  interest  in  the  sad  fate  of  the 
Willey  family  has  been  long-continued  and  general. 
One  evidence  which  proves  the  existence  of  this  in- 
terest comes  to  mind  when  one  thinks  of  the  great 
number  of  persons  who,  during  all  the  years  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  time  of  the  disaster,  have 
visited  the  scene  from  curiosity.^ 

Further  witness  to  the  generality  of  this  interest 
is  afforded  by  recalling  the  considerable  literature 
which  has  grown  up  about  the  story  of  the  catas- 
trophe and  which  includes,  besides  numerous  re- 
countings  of  the  circumstances,  a  romance^  based 
in  part  upon  this  event  and  written  by  an  author 
bearing  the  family  name,  one  of  Hawthorne's 
"Twice-Told  Tales,"  and  several  poems.  Haw- 
thorne's allegory,  "The  Ambitious  Guest,"  is  the 
chief  literary  monument  of  the  Willey  disaster. 
Among  the  poems  inspired  by  it  the  more  notable 
are  one  by  Mrs.  Sigourney,  the  Connecticut  poet,' 
and,  particularly,  a  spirited  narrative  ballad  by  Dr. 

*  It  was  formerly  the  custom,  one  which  was  established  early,  for 
visitors  to  add  a  stone  from  the  material  of  the  slide  to  a  memorial 
pile  on  the  spot  where  the  bodies  of  a  number  of  the  victims  were 
found.  In  process  of  time  this  has  accumulated  into  a  natural  monu- 
ment of  considerable  size,  but  of  late  years  it  has  become  hidden  be- 
cause of  the  growth  of  vegetation  about  it. 

*  Soltaire,  by  George  F.  Willey. 

'  "The  White  Mountains  after  the  Descent  of  the  Avalanche  in 
1826,"  printed  in  the  Ladies'  Magazine  (Boston),  August,  1828. 

86 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

Thomas  W.  Parsons,  the  Dante  translator  and  "the 
Poet"  of  Longfellow's  "Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn." 

The  sublimity  of  the  scenery  and  the  tragedy  of 
the  fate  of  an  entire  family  made  a  profound  im- 
pression upon  travelers  who  passed  that  way  in  the 
score  or  so  of  years  after  the  event,  and  those  who 
published  accounts  of  their  tours  in  almost  all  cases 
devoted  a  goodly  portion  of  the  record  of  their  trip 
to  the  White  Mountains  to  a  narration  of  the  story 
of  this  sad  occurrence.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
foreign  travelers  who  traversed  the  Notch  in  these 
early  days. 

The  facts  about  the  terrible  storm  to  which  the 
avalanche  was  immediately  due,  and  those  relat- 
ing to  the  disastrous  effects  of  the  heavy  rain  and  of 
the  landslide,  which  were  learned  or  inferred  by 
relatives  and  friends  of  the  destroyed  family  as  the 
result  of  visits  to  the  scene  a  few  days  afterward, 
together  with  much  conjecture  as  to  the  circum- 
stances and  course  of  events  on  the  fatal  Monday 
night,  are  set  down  in  great  detail  by  the  historian 
brother,  who  was  one  of  the  searchers  for  the  bodies 
of  the  victims.  A  few  additional  particulars  may  be 
gleaned  from  the  narrative  of  Crawford  and  from 
the  recollections  of  contemporaries  recorded  in  the 
newspapers. 

The  highway,  whose  construction  through  the 
Notch  shortly  after  the  discovery  of  the  pass  has 
been  already  chronicled  and  which  connected  Upper 
Coos  with  the  seaboard,  soon  became  an  important 
route  of  commerce.  After  the  turnpike  was  built, 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  long  lines  of  wagons 

87 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

loaded  down  with  merchandise  of  various  descrip- 
tions passed  through  the  gateway  both  summer  and 
winter,  and  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury pleasure  travelers  —  few  in  number,  to  be  sure, 
when  compared  with  the  later  travel  of  this  char- 
acter —  had  begun  to  find  their  way  thither,  mostly 
in  private  carriages.  This  increasing  traffic  made 
greatly  felt  the  need  of  public  houses  as  places  of 
shelter,  particularly  in  winter,  when  the  northern 
winds  are  bitterly  cold  and  the  road  is  buried  in 
snow,  often  deeply  drifted,  and  the  passage  through 
the  defile  therefore  extremely  arduous  and  not  a 
little  hazardous.  From  soon  after  the  beginning  of 
the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century,  there  had 
existed  on  this  route  simple  taverns  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  passing  traveler  who  should  be  in  need 
of  a  meal,  or  who,  overtaken  by  night  or  storm, 
should  require  a  lodging,  in  the  house  of  the  elder 
Crawford  near  the  modern  Bemis  Station  at  the 
southern  entrance  of  the  Notch  and  in  Eleazar 
Rosebrook's  inn  (near  the  present  Fabyan  House), 
thirteen  miles  distant  from  the  other.  In  view  of  the 
circumstances  just  mentioned,  it  is  evident  that  the 
opening  of  a  public  house  somewhere  on  the  road 
between  these  two  places  would  be  not  only  an  act 
likely  to  be  profitable  to  the  innkeeper,  but  also  one 
partaking  of  the  nature  of  a  benefaction  to  the 
traveler.  Especially  was  such  an  establishment  in 
the  depths  of  the  Notch  itself  a  desideratum  in  those 
days. 

There  is  a  disagreement  in  the  statements  as  to 
the  time  of  building  of  the  house  which  was  to  be- 

88 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

come  famous  as  the  Willey  House.  Mr.  Spaulding 
says  it  was  erected  by  a  Mr.  Davis  in  1793,  which 
would  make  its  building  contemporaneous  with 
the  settlements  of  Rosebrook  and  Crawford.  Mr. 
Willey  is  very  indefinite  as  to  the  time  when  the 
house  was  constructed,  his  statement  being  that  it 
"had  been  erected,  some  years  previous  to  the  time 
[1826]  of  which  we  write,  by  a  Mr.  Henry  Hill."  * 

Be  that  as  it  may,  this  simple  story-and-a-half 
dwelling,  situated  about  midway  between  the  two 
houses  that  have  been  mentioned,  was  doubtless  a 
timely  inn  to  many  a  weary  teamster  or  "lated 
traveler"  in  its  early  days.  The  supervention  of  a 
tragedy  was  destined,  however,  to  intermit  its  use  as  a 
place  of  shelter  and  to  change  the  nature  of  the  inter- 
est of  visitors  in  the  building  and  its  environment. 

After  it  had  been  kept  by  Mr.  Hill  and  others 
for  several  years  its  occupancy  was  abandoned.^   In 

*  Mr.  Crawford  says  in  the  ffw/or)',  under  1845,  "the  Notch  House, 
which  place  was  settled,  Uncle  William  [i.e.,  William  Rosebrook,  then 
seventy-two  years  old,  who  lived  with  the  Crawfords]  says,  about 
fifty-three  years  ago,  by  one  Mr.  Davis,  who  first  began  there;  since 
which  period,  others  have  lived  there  for  a  short  time,  until  Samuel 
Willey  bought  the  place,  and  repaired  it."  The  signboard  (missing  in 
1914)  at  the  site  states  that  the  house  was  built  by  Davis  in  1792, 
was  repaired  and  occupied  by  Fabyan  in  1844,  and  was  burned  in 
1898.  E.  A.  Kendall,  who  passed  through  the  Notch  in  November, 
1807,  speaks  of  a  house,  twenty  miles  from  Conway,  evidently  the 
old  Mount  Crawford  House  at  Bemis,  at  which  he  ate  a  meal,  and 
says  that  "at  a  distance  of  seven  miles,  there  is  another  house,  which 
second  house  is  only  three  miles  short  of  the  Notch,"  the  context 
showing  that  by  the  latter  he  means  the  Gate  of  the  Notch. 

*  Ethan  Allen  Crawford  engaged  the  house  in  the  fall  of  1823, 
"and  agreed  to  furnish  it  with  such  things  as  are  necessary  for  the 
comfort  of  travelers  and  their  horses."  He  records  the  buying  of  hay 
at  Jefferson  in  the  winter  of  1824  and  the  carrying  of  it  sixteen  miles 
to  furnish  the  Notch  place. 

89 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  autumn  of  1825,  after  the  house  had  been  for 
several  months  untenanted,  Samuel  Willey,  Jr.,  a 
son  of  one  ^  of  the  early  settlers  of  Upper  Bartlett, 
moved  his  family  into  it.  As  the  house  was  much 
in  need  of  repairs,  he  spent  the  autumn  in  making 
such  as  would  render  it  comfortable  during  the 
winter,  and  he  also  enlarged  the  stable  and  made 
such  other  improvements  as  the  time  would  permit. 
In  the  spring  further  improvements  were  planned 
and  begun  with  the  design  of  making  the  house  more 
worthy  of  patronage,  which  had  been  good  during 
the  winter  and  was  increasing. 

Nothing  unusual  occurred  during  the  winter  and 
spring  to  arouse  any  apprehension  as  to  the  unsafe- 
ness  of  the  situation  of  this  lone  abode,  but  one 
rainy  afternoon  in  June  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willey,  when 
sitting  by  a  window  which  looked  out  upon  the 
mountain  which  now  bears  their  name,  saw,  as  the 
mist  cleared  up,  a  mass  of  earth  begin  to  move,  in- 
crease in  volume  and  extent,  and  finally  rush  into 
the  valley  beneath.  This  was  soon  followed  by  an- 
other slide  of  lesser  magnitude.  Although  these 
avalanches  occurred  near  the  house,  they  did  no 
damage  to  the  property,  but  they  served  to  startle 
the  occupants  greatly,  and  Mr.  Willey  at  first  pur- 
posed to  leave  the  place  and,  it  is  believed,  even 
made  ready  to  do  so,  under  the  impulse  of  the  first 
panic.   His  decision  against  an  immediate  removal 

*  Samuel  Willey,  who  came  to  Bartlett  from  Lee,  later  moved  to 
North  Conway  and  lived  on  what  is  known  as  the  "Bigelow  Farm" 
until  his  death,  in  1844,  when  he  was  more  than  ninety  years  of  age. 
His  son,  Benjamin  G.j  the  historian,  was  the  second  pastor  of  the 
Congregational  Church  in  Conway.  He  died  in  1867. 

90 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

was  largely  determined  by  the  counsel  of  Abel 
Crawford,  who  with  a  force  of  men  Wcis  at  work 
the  day  of  the  storm  repairing  the  turnpike  near 
by. 

After  a  short  lapse  of  time,  Mr.  Willey,  who  had 
looked  about  in  vain  for  a  safer  place  in  which  to 
establish  his  home,  became  calmer  and  his  appre- 
hensions of  danger  were  allayed,  if  not  altogether 
removed.  Would  that  he  had  heeded  the  warning! 
But  he  came  to  think  that  such  an  occurrence  was 
unlikely  to  happen  again,  and  so  remained,  little 
fearing  danger  and  not  presaging  any  evil,  to  fall  a 
victim  with  all  his  family  two  months  later. 

The  midsummer  of  1826  was  characterized  in  the 
White  Mountain  region  by  high  temperatures  and 
a  long-continued  drought.  Under  the  hot  sun  the 
soil  became  dry  to  an  unusual  depth  and  so  prepared 
to  be  acted  upon  powerfully  by  any  heavy  rain. 
The  great  heat  and  extreme  drought  continued  un- 
til after  the  middle  of  August,  when  clouds  began 
to  gather  and  eventually  to  gain  permanence  and 
to  give  rain,  at  first  but  little  in  quantity.  Finally 
on  Monday,  August  28,  came  a  day  of  occasional 
showers,  which  were  but  a  premonition  of  what  was 
to  follow,  for  toward  evening  the  clouds  began  to 
gather  in  great  volume.  They  were  of  dense  black- 
ness, which  condition  combined  -with  their  magni- 
tude to  make  a  sublime  and  awful  aspect  of  the 
heavens.  Just  at  nightfall  it  began  to  rain,  and  then 
ensued  a  storm  which  will  be  ever  memorable  for 
its  violence  and  its  disastrous  consequences.  Some 
time  during  this   furious  downpour,  which  lasted 

91 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

for  several  hours,  ^  occurred  the  dreadful  avalanche 
which  buried  the  entire  household  of  the  little  dwell- 
ing in  the  depths  of  the  Notch. 

The  destructiveness  of  the  storm  began  to  be 
evident  to  the  dwellers  south  of  the  Notch  early 
the  next  morning  when  the  intervales  became  so 
flooded  that  the  cattle  and  horses  had  to  be  removed 
from  them,  and  when  daylight  revealed  the  desolat- 
ing effects  of  the  copious  rains  on  the  summits  and 
sides  of  the  mountains.  Many  trees  were  seen  to  be 
destroyed,  a  vast  amount  of  rocks  and  earth  to  be 
displaced,  and  many  grooves  and  gorges  to  have 
been  created  on  the  slopes. 

At  first  no  fears  were  felt  by  the  relatives  and 
friends  of  the  family  in  the  solitary  Notch  House  as  to 
their  safety  and,  indeed,  so  occupied  were  they  with 
their  own  immediate  concerns  because  of  the  floods, 
that  they  had  little  time  to  think  of  anything  else. 
Not  until  Wednesday  night,  when  unfavorable  re- 
ports began  to  reach  the  southern  settlements,  did 
suspicions  arise  that  all  was  not  well  with  the  house- 
hold in  the  Notch.  It  seems  that  the  first  person  to 
pass  through  the  Notch  after  the  storm  was  a  man 
named  John  Barker.  He  left  Ethan  Allen  Crawford's 
about  four  o'clock  and  reached  the  Notch  House 
about  sunset,  on  Tuesday.  Finding  it  deserted  ex- 
cept by  the  faithful  dog,^  he  concluded  that  the 

^  "  At  eleven  o'clock,"  says  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  "  we  had  a 
clearing-up  shower,  and  it  seemed  as  though  the  windows  of  heaven 
were  opened  and  the  rain  came  down  almost  in  streams." 

*  This  animal,  it  is  recorded,  did  what  he  could  to  make  the  dis- 
aster known,  for,  before  any  news  of  it  had  reached  Conway,  he 
appeared  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Lovejoy,  Mrs.  Willey's  father,  and, 

92 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

family  had  betaken  themselves  to  Abel  Crawford's, 
and  he  took  up  his  lodging  for  the  night  in  the  va- 
cated house.  Evidences  of  a  hasty  departure  were 
seen  in  the  opened  doors,  the  disarranged  beds,  the 
scattered  clothes,  and  the  Bible  lying  open  on  the 
table.  When  trying  to  compose  himself  to  sleep  he 
heard  a  low  moaning.  Unable,  because  of  the  dense 
darkness  and  of  having  no  provision  for  striking  a 
light,  to  do  anything  in  the  way  of  ascertaining  the 
source  of  this  or  of  rescuing  the  person  or  creature 
giving  utterance  to  it,  Barker  lay  terrified  and  sleep- 
less until  dawn,  when  he  arose  and,  after  a  search, 
found  the  cause  of  his  excitement.  It  was  an  ox, 
which  had  been  crushed  to  the  floor  by  the  fallen 
timbers  of  the  stable.  After  releasing  the  suffering 
animal.  Barker  proceeded  on  his  way  to  Bartlett, 
and  on  arriving  at  Judge  Hall's  tavern  told  about 
the  fearful  slide  at  the  Willey  farm.  That  night  a 
party  of  men  from  Bartlett  started  for  the  Notch. 
They  arrived  at  their  destination  toward  morning, 
on  Thursday,  after  a  difficult  journey.  As  soon  as 
day  broke  they  began  their  search.  The  confirmed 
reports  of  the  perishing  of  the  family  having  reached 
the  relatives,  they  too  started  for  the  scene  of  the 
disaster,  which  they  reached  about  noon  of  that  day. 
Many  other  people  had  come  as  the  result  of  the 
spreading  of  the  news. 

by  meanings  and  other  expressions  of  anguish,  tried  to  tell  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  that  something  dreadful  had  happened.  But  not 
succeeding  in  making  himself  understood,  he  left,  and,  although  he 
was  afterward  frequently  seen  running  at  great  speed,  now  up  and 
now  down  the  road  between  the  Lovejoy  home  and  the  Notch  House, 
he  soon  disappeared  from  the  region,  doubtless  perishing  through 
grief  and  loneliness. 

93 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

It  was  a  vast  scene  of  desolation  and  ruin  that 
met  the  eyes  of  the  searchers  as  they  approached  the 
spot.  On  a  clearing  perhaps  a  hundred  rods  below 
the  house,  one  great  slide  had  deposited  its  material, 
consisting  of  large  rocks,  trees,  and  sand.  The  sides 
of  the  mountain  above  the  house,  once  green  with 
woods,  were  lacerated  and  stripped  bare  for  a  vast 
extent,  while  the  plain  appeared  one  continuous  bed 
of  sand  and  rocks  with  broken  trees  and  branches  in- 
termingled with  them.  Many  separate  scars  and  slide 
deposits  were  to  be  seen  above  and  below  the  house, 
which  stood  unharmed  amid  the  ruin  all  about  it. 
The  avalanche  of  greatest  magnitude,  which  started 
far  up  on  the  mountain-side  directly  behind  the 
house,  would  have  overwhelmed  it  but  for  a  curious 
circumstance  arising  from  a  peculiarity  in  the  con- 
figuration of  the  ground.  It  so  happened  that  the 
slide,  when  it  had  reached  a  point  not  far  above  the 
little  dwelling,  had  to  encounter  in  its  course  down 
the  mountain  a  low  ridge,  or  ledge  of  rock,  which 
extended  from  this  place  to  a  more  precipitous  part 
of  the  mountain.  This,  when  met,  not  only  some- 
what arrested  the  slide,  but,  what  was  yet  more 
remarkable,  served  to  divide  it  into  two  parts.  One 
portion  of  the  d6bris  flowed  to  one  side,  carrying 
away  the  stable  above  the  house,  but  avoiding  the 
latter  building,  while  the  other  passed  by  it  on  the 
other  side.  In  front  of  the  house  the  two  divisions 
reunited  and  flowed  on  in  the  bed  of  the  Saco.  This 
strange  circumstance  in  the  action  of  the  landslide, 
with  its  even  more  singular  results,  the  sparing  of  the 
house  and  the  destruction  of  its  inmates,  —  for  it 

94 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

was  doubtless  this  particular  convulsion  that  was  the 
occasion  of  the  latter  event,  —  lends  to  the  story  of 
the  disaster,  when  one  thinks  of  the  perversity  of 
fate  in  this  instance  and  of  what  might  have  been, 
a  peculiar  pathos. 

Just  how  the  members  of  the  household  met  their 
deaths  will  never  be  known.  Whether,  on  hearing 
the  frightful  noise  which  must  have  accompanied 
the  avalanche  and  have  heralded  its  coming,  they 
fled  precipitately  before  it  from  the  house  and  were 
overwhelmed  by  it  when  it  reached  the  low  ground, 
or  whether  they  had  already,  for  fear  of  being 
drowned  by  the  rising  waters  above  the  habitation, 
betaken  themselves  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain  be- 
fore the  slide  came  down  and  there  had  been  caught 
in  its  course  and  carried  away  with  it,  we  cannot  tell. 
However  it  may  be,  these  alternative  suppositions, 
at  any  rate,  embody  the  principal  theories  that  have 
been  advanced  as  to  the  probable  course  of  events, 
but,  it  must  be  admitted,  they  both  rest  upon  in- 
ference and,  largely,  upon  conjecture. 

Such  search^  as  had  been  made  for  the  bodies  up 
to  noon  on  Thursday  had  been  unavailing.  Not 
long  after,  however,  a  man  who  was  searching  along 
the  slide  just  below  the  house  happened,  through  the 
accidental  moving  of  a  twig,  to  notice  a  number  of 
flies  about  the  entrance  to  a  sort  of  cave  formed  by 

*  Among  the  searchers  was  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  who  had  been 
sent  for  by  the  friends  of  the  Willey  family.  He  tells  of  nailing  to  a 
dead  tree,  near  the  place  where  the  bodies  were  found,  a  planed  board 
on  which  he  had  written  with  a  piece  of  red  chalk,  "The  family  found 
here,"  which  "  monument "  was  afterward  taken  away  by  some  of  the 
later  occupants  of  the  house  and  used  for  fuel. 

95 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

material  of  the  slide,  and  as  the  result  of  a  search 
which  was  immediately  instituted  about  this  spot 
the  location  of  one  of  the  bodies  was  disclosed.  This 
body  proved  to  be  that  of  David  Allen,  one  of  the 
farmhands.  Not  long  after,  the  eager  searchers  came 
upon  the  body  of  Mrs.  Willey,  even  more  terribly 
mangled  than  that  of  the  farmhand.  Further  search 
soon  revealed  the  body  of  Mr.  Willey,  not  far  away. 
These  were  all  that  were  found  that  day,  and,  as  it 
was  decided  to  bury  them  near  their  habitation 
until  they  could  be  more  conveniently  moved  to 
Conway  the  next  winter,  coffins  were  made  of  such 
materials  as  could  be  obtained  there,  and  the  bodies, 
after  prayer  by  a  Bartlett  minister,  were  buried  in  a 
common  grave. 

Search  was  continued  on  the  next  day,  and  during 
its  course  the  body  of  the  youngest  child  was  found 
and  buried.  On  Saturday^  the  body  of  the  eldest 
child,  a  girl  of  twelve  years,  and  that  of  the  other 
hired  man,  Da,vid  Nickerson,  were  recovered  and 
buried.  The  bodies  of  the  three  other  children  have 
never  been  found.  They  were  covered  so  deeply  be- 
neath the  sand  and  rocks  that  no  search  has  ever 
been  able  to  discover  them.  In  view  of  the  magni- 
tude and  extent  of  the  avalanche  and  the  quantity 
of  materials  deposited  upon  the  valley,  it  is  more 
remarkable  that  so  many  bodies  were  recovered 
than  that  these  were  not  found. 

The  only  living  things  about  the  premises  to 

^  Mr.  Crawford  says  Nickerson's  body  was  recovered  on  Saturday 
and  that  of  the  eldest  daughter  on  Sunday,  the  latter  being  found 
some  distance  from  where  the  others  were  and  across  the  river,  she 
apparently  having  met  death  by  drowning. 

96 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

escape  were  the  dog  and  two  oxen.  These  latter  were 
endangered  by  falling  timbers,  but  suffered  no  seri- 
ous injury.  Two  horses  were,  however,  crushed  to 
death  by  timbers  of  the  stable. 

The  foregoing  narrative  embodies  the  main  facts 
of  this  melancholy  event.  The  story  of  the  storm 
which  was  the  proximate  cause  of  the  landslide  would 
not,  however,  be  complete  without  some  mention 
of  the  disastrous  work  of  this  terrific  downpour,  not 
only  in  the  region  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Willey 
House,  but  elsewhere,  for  it  did  great  damage  in 
other  parts  of  the  Mountains  also. 

The  road  through  the  Crawford  Notch  was  in 
many  places  destroyed.  All  the  bridges  but  two 
along  the  entire  length  of  the  turnpike,  a  distance  of 
seventeen  miles,  were  carried  away.  The  directors, 
seeing  it  would  take  a  great  sum  to  repair  the  road, 
voted,  after  the  good  people  of  Portland  had  con- 
tributed fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  help  and  en- 
courage them,  to  levy  an  assessment  upon  the  shares. 
These  sums,  with  some  other  assistance,  provided 
means  for  accomplishing  the  work,  which  is  said  to 
have  been  carried  on  by  the  hardy  natives  by  moon- 
light as  well  as  in  the  daytime. 

The  storm  utterly  destroyed  the  road  through  the 
Franconia  Notch  also,  and  travel  had  to  be  sus- 
pended until  after  repairs  were  made  by  means  of  a 
state  appropriation  of  thirteen  hundred  dollars. 

The  best  part  of  Abel  Crawford's  farm  was  de- 
stroyed. A  new  sawmill,  which  had  just  been  built 
by  Crawford,  who  was  away  from  home  at  the  time 
of  the  flood,  was  swept  away,  together  with  a  great 

97 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

number  of  logs  and  boards  and  all  the  fences  on  the 
intervale.  Twenty-eight  sheep  were  drowned  and  a 
great  deal  of  standing  grain  was  ruined.  The  water 
rose  so  high  as  to  run  through  the  entire  house  on  the 
lower  floors  and  sweep  out  the  coals  and  ashes  from 
the  fireplace.  Many  other  dwellers  on  the  banks  of 
the  Saco  and  its  tributaries  suffered  more  or  less 
damage. 

At  Ethan  Crawford's  on  the  Ammonoosuc  much 
injury  to  property  and  live  stock  was  occasioned  by 
the  flood.  The  whole  intervale  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Giant's  Grave  was  covered  with  water  for  a  space  of 
more  than  two  hundred  acres.  The  road  was  greatly 
damaged  and  in  some  places  entirely  demolished. 
The  bridge  was  carried  away,  taking  with  it  in  its 
course  down  the  river  ninety  feet  of  shed  which  had 
been  attached  to  the  barn  that  escaped  the  fire  of 
1818.  Fourteen  sheep  were  drowned  and  a  large 
field  of  oats  was  destroyed.  The  flood  came  within 
a  foot  and  a  half  of  the  door  of  the  house,  a.  strong 
stream  ran  between  the  house  and  the  stable,  and 
much  wood  was  swept  away.  Mr.  Crawford's  camp 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  with  all  its  furnishings, 
which  were  enclosed  in  a  sheet-iron  chest,  was  car- 
ried away  by  the  rising  water.  No  part  of  the  iron 
chest,  or  of  its  contents,  which  included  eleven 
blankets  and  a  supply  of  cooking-utensils,  was  ever 
found,  except  a  few  pieces  of  blanket  that  were 
caught  on  bushes  at  different  places  down  the  river. 

An  incident  relating  to  a  party  of  travelers,  which 
occurred  at  the  time  of  the  storm,  may  well  be  nar- 
rated here.  On  the  26th  of  August,  some  gentlemen 

98 


FIRST  SETTLEMENTS  AND  SETTLERS 

from  the  West  arrived  at  Crawford's  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ascending  Mount  Washington.  Crawford, 
as  the  weather  was  threatening,  advised  them  not 
to  go  that  afternoon,  but  as  their  time  was  limited 
they  said  they  must  proceed,  and  so  he  guided  them 
to  the  camp,  where  they  arrived  at  ten  o'clock  at 
night.  Early  the  next  morning  it  began  to  rain, 
which  took  away  all  hope  of  ascending  the  mountain 
that  day.  Reluctant  to  abandon  their  excursion, 
now  that  they  were  so  near  the  goal,  it  was  decided 
that  Crawford  should  go  to  his  home  for  more  pro- 
visions and  return  to  the  camp.  Crawford  arrived 
home  tired  from  a  slow  and  wearisome  journey 
through  the  rain  and  mud.  His  brother  Thomas, 
who  happened  to  be  at  the  house,  cheerfully  con- 
sented to  take  his  place.  When  the  latter  arrived  at 
the  camp,  he  found  that  the  rain  had  put  out  the 
fire  and  that  the  party  were  holding  a  council  as  to 
what  was  to  be  done.  He  told  them  that  it  would  be 
very  unpleasant,  if  not  dangerous,  to  remain  where 
they  were,  and  that  by  rapid  traveling  it  might  be 
possible  to  reach  the  house.  By  fast  walking,  by 
wading,  and  by  crossing  the  swollen  streams  on 
trees  cut  down  and  laid  across  to  serve  as  bridges, 
they  managed  to  reach  the  house  safely  about  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  Fortunately,  they  reached 
the  bridge  over  the  Ammonoosuc  just  in  time  to 
pass  over  it  before  it  was  swept  away.  Had  they  re- 
mained, they  would  have  shared  the  same  fate  as 
the  Willey  family,  or,  at  least,  have  suffered  greatly 
from  cold,  hunger,  and  exposure.  On  the  following 
Wednesday,  the  water  having  by  that  time  suf- 

99 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ficiently  subsided  to  permit  the  fording  of  the  Am- 
monoosuc,  with  Thomas  Crawford  for  guide,  some 
of  the  party,  with  the  addition  of  another  small 
party  from  the  West,  achieved  the  ascent  of  the 
mountain,  although  they  had  much  difficulty  in 
finding  their  way  owing  to  the  destructive  effect  of 
the  rain  on  the  path. 

Farther  down  the  Ammonoosuc,  at  Rosebrook's, 
and  elsewhere  in  the  valley,  much  damage  was  done, 
although  conditions  were  not  so  bad  as  at  Crawford's. 
Many  other  slides,  also,  besides  the  one  at  the 
Willey  House,  devastated  great  areas  on  the  slopes 
of  the  Mountains,  notably  a  very  extensive  one  on 
the  west  side  of  Mount  Pleasant. 

Such,  then,  were  some  of  the  effects  of  this  most 
remarkable  storm  in  White  Mountain  history,  which 
will  be  ever  memorable  for  its  destruction  of  prop- 
erty and  human  life. 

The  disaster  at  the  Willey  House  did  not  deter 
others  from  occupying  it,  for,  somewhat  more  than 
a  year  after,  a  man  named  Pendexter  moved  into  it 
with  the  object  chiefly  of  affording  entertainment 
for  travelers  during  the  winter.  Some  time  after  his 
removal  a  storm,  not  so  severe  as  that  of  1826,  but 
yet  a  very  heavy  one,  took  place.  The  impressive 
circumstances  of  this  terrific  storm  of  thunder, 
lightning,  and  rain,  together  with  the  remembrance 
of  what  had  occurred  there,  so  affected  the  family 
then  residing  there,  that,  it  is  said,  not  a  word  was 
spoken  for  nearly  half  an  hour. 


V 

FURTHER     DISCOVERIES     AND     EXPLORATIONS  — 

SOME  NOTED  AMERICAN   VISITORS   OF   THE 

EARLY   DAYS 

Whether  or  no  the  natural  curiosity  commonly 
called  the  "Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,"  or  the 
"Profile,"  was  known  to  the  Indians  cannot  be  de- 
termined with  certainty;  the  tradition  that  it  was 
worshiped  by  them,  at  any  rate,  is  very  doubtful, 
as  they  appear  to  have  left  us  no  legend  concerning 
it.  The  story  of  the  discovery  of  this  the  cardinal 
wonder  of  the  New  Hampshire  highlands,  and  un- 
doubtedly the  most  remarkable  freak  of  nature  of  its 
kind  in  the  world,  is  a  prosaic  one  enough.  According 
to  Sweetser,  the  discovery  was  made  in  1805  by 
Francis  Whitcomb  and  Luke  Brooks,  two  men  who 
were  working  on  the  Notch  Road,  and  who,  hap- 
pening to  go  to  Profile  Lake  (then  known  as  Fer- 
rin's  Pond)  to  wash  their  hands,  were  by  this  chance 
the  first  white  men  to  behold  the  face. 

Instead  of  exhibiting  the  nation-wide  tendency  to 
find  in  any  such  natural  formation  a  fancied  re- 
semblance to  the  profile  of  the  Father  of  his  Coun- 
try, one  or  other  of  them  exclaimed,  it  is  said,  and 
perhaps  thereby  revealed  his  political  affiliations, 
"That  is  Jefferson"  (he  was  then  President). 

The  late  W.  C.  Prime,  long  a  summer  resident  of 
the  Franconia  region,  and,  when  occupying  his  cabin 

10 1 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

on  Lonesome  Lake,^  a  near  neighbor,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  Old  Man,  gives  a  different  version  of  the  find- 
ing. His  account  of  it,  which  is  based  upon  "Fran- 
conia  tradition,  tolerably  well  verified  by  my  own 
investigations  among  old  residents,"  bestows  the 
honor  of  being  the  first  white  beholder  of  the  Profile 
upon  a  Baptist  clergyman  from  Lisbon,  who,  having 
occasion  to  see  one  of  the  men  working  on  the  new 
road,  and  having  driven  for  this  purpose  up  to  this 
part  of  the  Notch,  happened,  while  talking  to  the 
man,  to  glance  up  through  the  trees  in  such  a  line 
of  vision  that  he  saw  the  face  outlined  against  the 
sky.  Exclaiming,  "Look  there ! "  he  directed  the  at- 
tention of  the  men,  who  had  been  cutting  out  bushes 
on  the  knoll  by  the  lake,  to  the  startling  object. 

Mr.  Justus  Conrad  has  this  to  say  of  the  matter 
in  question  in  the  Granite  Monthly  for  July,  1897: — 

It  is  claimed  by  some  writers  that  the  Old  Man  of  the 
Mountain  and  the  Flume  were  discovered  in  1805,  but 
these  wonders  were  no  doubt  known  to  some  long  before 
this.  The  region  was  a  favorite  haunt  of  the  red  men,  and 
it  is  stated,  on  reasonable  authority,  that  the  friends  of 
Stark  made  the  first  discovery  while  searching  for  him 
after  his  capture  by  the  Indians. 

However  this  may  be  as  to  the  finding  of  the  Pro- 
file, it  may  be  adduced  in  opposition  to  the  view  just 

^  This  picturesque  tarn  is  situated  on  the  ridge,  and  under  one  of 
the  high  bluffs,  of  Mount  Cannon,  and  is  about  one  thousand  feet 
above  the  road.  The  lake  and  the  adjoining  territory  were  for  some 
years  the  property  of  this  well-known  New  York  journalist,  author, 
and  angler  and  his  friend,  W.  F.  Bridge.  Here  they  used  to  stay  for 
longer  or  shorter  periods  and  to  entertain  their  friends  in  their  quaint 
woodland  cottage  on  the  shore  of  the  lake.  General  McClellan  spent 
many  happy  days  in  this  secluded  spot, 

102 


THE   OLD   MAN   OF   THE   MOUNTAIN 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

put  forward  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  other  Franconia 
curiosity,  that,  inasmuch  as  the  Flume  is  situated  off 
the  main  trail  or  road,  it  is  not  likely  that  it  would  be 
come  upon  by  those  passing  through  the  Notch  hur- 
riedly. It  seems  more  probable  that  its  discovery 
came  about  in  the  manner  that  is  related  a  little 
farther  on. 

The  existence  of  the  Profile  was  first  made  known 
to  the  world  at  large  by  General  Martin  Field,  who, 
after  visiting  it  in  1827,  sent  a  brief  description  of  it 
to  Professor  Silliman,  editor  of  the  American  Journal 
of  Science  and  Arts,  who  published  the  letter  in  the 
Journal  for  July,  1828,  together  with  an  engraving 
in  which  the  figure  is  so  curiously  exaggerated  as  to 
be  grotesque. 

It  remained,  however,  for  Hawthorne  to  give  the 
Profile  literary  immortality,  which  he  did,  by  cele- 
brating it  in  one  of  his  most  beautiful  allegorical 
tales,  "The  Great  Stone  Face."  It  is  introduced 
also  into  a  later  story,  Professor  Edward  Roth's 
pleasing  legendary  tale  of  "Christus  Judex."  The 
theme  of  this  is  the  search  of  an  Italian  painter, 
Casola,  for  a  suitable  model  for  the  face  of  a  figure  of 
Christ  sitting  in  judgment,  which  he  had  resolved  to 
paint  for  the  altar-piece  of  the  church  in  his  native 
town.* 

*  As  the  little  book  is  probably  known  to  but  few,  perhaps  a  brief 
summary  of  the  story  may  be  given  here.  Having  failed,  after  much 
seeking,  to  find  a  satisfactory  countenance  or  representation  of  one 
in  the  Old  World,  Casola  is  much  discouraged  until  he  hears  from  his 
mother  that  a  dying  missionary  has  told  her  of  having  seen  a  face  in 
the  wilderness  of  America  such  as  might  belong  to  a  judging  Christ. 
Acting  upon  this  report,  the  painter  immediately  crosses  the  sea  and 
has  himself  conducted  to  the  region  in  the  land  of  the  Abnakis  where 

103 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Such  is  the  fame  of  the  Profile,  that  almost  un- 
canny counterfeit  presentment  carved  by  Nature's 
hand,  that  perhaps  a  brief  digression  from  the  his- 
torical to  the  descriptive  may  be  pardoned  by  the 
reader.  This  illusion,  for,  as  Dr.  Prime  points  out, 
"there  is  no  rock-hewn  face  there,"  and  "the  profile, 
therefore,  exists  only  in  the  eyes  that  see  it,"  is  pro- 
duced by  the  accidental  position  of  the  edges  and 
various  projecting  points  of  three  disconnected 
ledges,  which  have  different  vertical  axes  and  which 
form  severally  the  forehead,  the  nose  and  upper  lip, 
and  the  chin.  These  surfaces  and  projections  form 
the  outline  of  a  profile  when  viewed  in  combination 
from  a  certain  direction;  but  when  the  beholder 
moves  a  short  distance  from  the  proper  line  of  vision 
the  appearance  vanishes  and  he  finds  himself  looking 
only  at  a  rough,  jagged  cliff. 

Not  content  with  the  production  of  this  startling 
optical  effect,  which  alone  would  be  a  sufficient 
appeal  to  the  vision  of  any  traveler.  Nature  has 
lavishly  provided  a  strikingly  beautiful  situation  and 
most  picturesque  surroundings  as  a  setting  for  this 
marvel.  The  combination  of  ledges  which  forms  the 
material  of  this  illusion  is  set  on  the  southeast  end  of 
the  long  majestic  ridge  of  Mount  Cannon,  or  Profile, 
at  an  altitude  of  twelve  hundred  feet  above  Profile 
Lake,  a  sheet  of  water,  "than  which,"  to  quote  Dr. 
Prime  again,  "there  is  nowhere  on  earth  one  more 

the  missionary  had  labored.  Having  arrived  there,  he  finds,  among  the 
converted  Indians  of  a  village  on  the  Kennebec,  some  who  guide  him 
to  the  region  of  lofty  mountains  to  the  westward,  where  he  at  length 
attains  the  object  of  his  search  and  finds  in  the  Profile  the  fulfillment 
of  his  conception  of  ideal  grandeur. 

104 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

beautiful."  From  the  base  of  the  projection  forming 
the  chin  to  the  top  of  that  forming  the  forehead  the 
vertical  distance  is  from  thirty-six  to  forty  feet.^ 

A  word  or  two  as  to  the  permanency  of  the  material 
of  this  marvelous  visual  effect.  Professor  Hitchcock's 
fear,  expressed  more  than  forty  years  ago,  that,  owing 
to  the  friability  of  the  granite  of  which  the  ledges  are 
composed  and  its  consequent  rapid  disintegration, 
the  ledges  might  soon  disappear,  has  so  far  not  been 
realized.  Myriads  of  travelers  have  gazed  with  ad- 
miration and  awe  upon  that  stern  and  somewhat 
melancholy  visage  looking  imperturbably  down  the 
valley  from  its  lofty  situation,  and  myriads  of  per- 
sons who  have  not  visited  the  spot  have  been  made 
familiar  with  the  appearance  of  the  Old  Man 
through  pictures  or  other  representations.  Sad  will 
be  the  day  (may  it  never  come !)  when  that  marvel  of 
Nature  shall  be  marred  or  be  no  longer  to  be  seen. 

Regarding  the  discovery  of  the  other  great  natural 
curiosity  of  the  Franconia  Notch,  the  Flume,  there 
is  little  to  tell.  Indeed,  beyond  the  bare  statement 
that  it  was  made  at  about  the  same  time  as  that 
of  the  Profile,  and  by  Mrs.  Jessie  Guernsey, ^  wife  of 

1  According  to  the  State  Survey  of  1871,  when  the  measurement 
was  made  by  young  men  from  Dartmouth  College,  attached  to  the 
survey  party, 

*  The  name  was  evidently  in  early  days  pronounced  in  the  English 
fashion,  for  it  was  sometimes  spelled  "Garnsey."  Harry  Hibbard's 
long  poem  "Franconia  Mountain  Notch,"  first  published  in  1839, 
contains  the  following  stanza  on  the  Flume :  — 

"And,  farther  down,  from  Garnsey's  lone  abode. 
By  a  rude  footpath  climb  the  mountain-.side, 
Leaving  below  the  traveler's  winding  road, 
To  where  the  cleft  hill  yawns  abrupt  and  wide. 
As  though  some  earthquake  did  its  mass  divide, 

105 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  pioneer  settler  of  this  locality,  while  fishing  along 
the  brook,  information  appears  to  be  lacking. 

Perhaps  the  earliest  printed  description  of  the 
Franconia  Notch  appeared  in  the  New  Hampshire 
Statesman  and  Concord  Register  of  September  9  and 
16,  1826.  It  contained  an  account  of  an  ascent  of 
Mount  Lafayette,  which  received  its  present  name,* 
probably  during  the  great  Frenchman's  stay  in  the 
United  States,  in  1824-25.  Another  early  ascent  of 
this  noble  peak  was  accomplished  by  Forrest  Shep- 
ard,  a  Mr.  Sparhawk,  of  Dartmouth  College,  and  a 
guide,  on  the  7th  of  August,  1826.  Mr.  Shepard  sent 
an  account  of  his  trip  to  Professor  Silliman,  which  was 
printed  in  the  American  Journal  oj  Science  and  Arts 
for  June,  1827. 

The  summit  was  reached  at  1 1  a.m.  after  a  "rugged 
ascent"  of  several  hours.  The  climbers  were  envel- 
oped in  passing  clouds  while  on  the  mountain,  ob- 
taining only  glimpses  of  the  country  below  and 
around  them,  during  occasional  momentary  break- 
ings away.  In  the  late  afternoon,  while  there  was  a 
thunderstorm  below  them,  they  were  enfolded  in  a 
slight  mist,  through  which  the  sun  suddenly  burst, 
causing  to  their  "astonishment  and  delight"  a  pe- 
culiar meteorological  phenomenon.  As  it  was  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Shepard,  their  shadows  were  seen 

In  olden  time;  there  view  the  rocky  Flume, 

Tremendous  chasm  1  rising  side  by  side. 

The  rocks  abrupt  wall  in  the  long,  high  room, 

Echoing  the  wild  stream's  roar,  and  dark  with  vapory  gloom." 

The  Guernsey  farm  is  located  about  one  mile  south  of  the  Flume 
House,  and  is  still  occupied  by  persons  of  that  name. 

^  President  Dwight  proposed  to  call  it  Mount  Wentworth.  In  Car- 
rigain's  map  of  1816,  it  was  called  the  Great  Haystack. 

106 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

reposing  upon  the  bosom  of  the  cloud,  while  around 
each  of  their  shadow  heads  was  an  entire  rainbow, 
which  persisted  for  twelve  or  fifteen  minutes. 

A  great  portion  of  the  "Crawford  History"  is 
devoted  to  accounts  of  the  individuals  or  parties 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford  entertained  in  his  home  and 
tavern  and  of  the  excursions  made  by  them,  under 
his  piloting,  through  the  Mountains,  up  Mount 
Washington,  or  over  the  Range.  Among  these  early 
travelers  to  the  region  were  a  number  of  noted 
men,  of  whose  visits  Mr.  Crawford  gives  interesting 
and  entertaining  reminiscences  or  anecdotes,  drawn 
from  his  recollection  or  taken  from  entries  which 
they  made  in  his  "album." 

One  of  the  earliest  of  such  visitors  was  Chancellor 
James  Kent,  of  New  York,  who  came  to  the  Craw- 
ford inn  in  the  summer  of  1823,  accompanied  by 
two  young  men.  The  famous  jurist^  wished  to  pass 
through  the  Notch,  and  as  the  stage  did  not  then 
run  on  that  route,  he  put  up  at  Crawford's  for  the 
night,  and  arranged  to  secure  a  conveyance  from 
the  proprietor  to  carry  his  party  to  Conway.  In  the 
morning  Crawford  harnessed  his  two  mares  to  a 
wagon  and  the  journey  was  made  that  day.   "While 

*  Chancellor  Kent  had  just  retired  from  his  office  on  account  of 
having  reached  the  age  (sixty  years)  which  was  then  the  age  limit  for 
the  chancellorship,  and  was  taking  a  pleasure  tour  through  the 
"Eastern  States."  One  of  his  young  companions  was  his  son,  Wil- 
liam, then  twenty-one,  afterwards  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
New  York  and  Professor  of  Law  in  Harvard  University.  Some  books 
state  that  Chancellor  Kent  ascended  Mount  Washington,  but  there 
is  nothing  in  the  Crawford  History  to  that  effect.  His  age  and  the  fact 
that  at  that  early  date  the  mountain  could  be  ascended  only  on  foot 
would  seem  to  render  it  unlikely  that  he  made  such  an  arduous 
trip. 

107 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

on  the  way,"  says  the  pioneer,  "we  had  an  interest- 
ing time  in  exchanging  jokes,  etc." 

Crawford  tells,  under  the  date  of  1825,  of  accom- 
panying a  botanist,  who  was  making  a  collection 
of  plants  of  the  White  Mountains,  in  some  of  his 
tours,  which  occupied  several  weeks.  This  must 
have  been  Oakes,  whose  visits  have  been  already 
mentioned. 

In  1829  came  another  botanical  explorer.  Dr. 
J.  W.  Robbins,  who  traversed  the  entire  Range,  de- 
scending into  and  crossing  the  Great  Gulf  and  visit- 
ing all  the  eastern  summits  for  the  first  time  for 
scientific  purposes.  The  plants  of  the  southeastern 
ridge  had  been  collected  by  Benjamin  D.  Greene  in 
1823,  and  Henry  Little,  a  medical  student,  also  ex- 
plored this  part  of  the  Mountains  in  that  same 
year.  About  this  time,  also,  the  naturalist  Nuttall 
botanized  here  and  detected  several  species  of 
plants,  some  of  such  rarity,  it  is  said,  that  they  have 
hardly  been  seen  since. 

Professor  Benjamin  Silliman,  the  noted  scientist, 
made  at  least  two  excursions  to  the  White  Moun- 
tains. He  visited  them  for  the  first  time  in  May, 
1828,  and  from  memoranda  taken  from  letters  to 
his  family  and  printed  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Science  and  Arts  for  January,  1829,  we  learn  that 
he  went  from  Concord  to  Center  Harbor,  ascending 
Red  Hill,  and  then  on  to  Conway.  On  Monday,  the 
19th,  on  which  day  he  rode  through  the  Notch,  he 
writes,  "We  .  .  .  have  this  day  passed  the  grandest 
scenes  that  I  have  any  where  seen.  The  whole  day's 
ride,  in  an  open  wagon,  has  been  in  the  winding  defile 

108 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

of  mountains,  which  probably  have  not  their  equal 
in  North  America,  until  we  reach  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains." He  describes  the  Notch  and  narrates  briefly 
the  Willey  disaster,  the  scene  of  which  he  visited 
again  the  next  day,  examining  the  scenery,  the 
geological  phenomena,  and  the  ruins.  His  letter  of 
that  day  gives  further  details  of  the  catastrophe  and 
describes  the  slides  and  their  effects. 

Professor  Silliman's  second  expedition  to  the 
Mountains  was  made  in  August  and  September, 
1837,  and  is  recorded  in  the  Journal  for  April,  1838. 
On  the  first  day  of  September,  1837,  in  company 
with  his  son  and  two  gentlemen  of  Boston,  he  as- 
cended Mount  Washington  under  severe  weather 
conditions,  which  rendered  the  trip  "very  ardu- 
ous." They  became  involved  in  a  cloud,  which  froze 
on  their  clothing  and  "tufted  the  rocks  with  splen- 
did crystallizations  of  ice."  The  path  was  slippery 
with  ice,  and  above  the  tree-line  the  wind  blew  "a 
frozen  gale."  As  there  were  occasional  outbursts  of 
the  sun,  they  persevered  and  reached  the  summit, 
where,  however,  the  wind  blew  so  furiously  that 
"the  strongest  man  could  not  keep  his  standing 
without  holding  fast  by  the  rocks,"  and  only  a  few 
minutes  at  a  time  could  be  given  to  the  peak  on 
account  of  the  severity  of  the  cold  and  the  violent 
pelting  of  the  storm.  "  For  science,"  he  says,  "  there 
was  little  to  survey."  He  notes  that  the  descent, 
although,  of  course,  more  rapid  than  the  ascent  and 
much  less  fatiguing  to  the  lungs,  was  very  trying  to 
the  limbs,  and  especially  to  the  larger  muscles  and  to 
the  patella,  "which  seemed  as  if  it  would  part  with 

109 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  strain."  The  pedestrian  ascent  occupied  two  and 
a  half  hours;  the  entire  journey  about  ten  hours  "of 
strenuous  and  constant  exertion." 

Besides  the  elder  President  Dwight,  accounts  of 
whose  journeys  to  the  Mountains  have  been  given 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  another  member  of  that 
noted  family  has  by  his  writings  pleasantly  asso- 
ciated his  name  with  the  region.  This  is  President 
Dwight's  nephew  and  pupil,  Theodore  Dwight,  Jr., 
who,  forced  to  abandon  his  theological  studies  be- 
cause of  ill  health,  became  a  traveler  and  later  a 
metropolitan  magazine  editor,  publisher,  and  phil- 
anthropist, and  who  was  the  author  of  numerous 
works,  including  several  volumes  of  travel. 

About  1825,^  he  made  a  horseback  journey 
through  New  England,  going  up  the  Connecticut  as 
far  as  the  mouth  of  its  tributary,  the  Ammonoosuc, 
following  the  latter  up  to  the  White  Mountains,  and 
thence  passing  through  the  Crawford  Notch  and 
continuing  on  to  Boston. 

The  literary  fruits  of  this  tour  were  several.  His 
"Sketches  of  Scenery  and  Manners  in  the  United 
States"  (1829),  has  a  chapter  ^  on  "The  White 
Mountains,"  in  which  he  gives  extensive  descrip- 
tions of  the  scenery,  an  account  of  the  Willey  disaster 

*  I  have  been  unable  to  ascertain  the  date  of  this  trip.  In  his 
Northern  Traveller,  in  speaking  of  a  quarry  near  Concord,  he  notes  the 
removal  of  a  very  large  piece  of  rock  in  1824,  which  he  may  have  seen 
at  the  time.  He  also  refers  to  the  Notch  House  (Willey  House)  as 
being  unoccupied  in  summer.  Mr.  Willey  moved  into  the  house  in  the 
autumn  of  1825. 

^  The  book  contains  two  rude  lithographic  prints,  one  a  view  of  the 
Notch  and  the  other  showing  the  effects  of  the  slides.  They  are  simi- 
lar to  those  in  his  later  book,  Things  as  They  Are. 

1 10 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

with  reflections  upon  it,  a  description  of  the  house, 
and  a  long  quotation  having  to  do  with  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  storm  experienced  by  a  traveler  through 
the  Notch  who  took  shelter  from  the  elements  in  the 
solitary  dwelling  when  it  stood  untenanted  previous 
to  the  advent  of  the  Willeys. 

Again,  in  the  later  editions^  of  his  guide-book, 
"The  Northern  Traveller,"  he  includes  directions 
for  traveling  through  the  Mountains,  a  brief  ac- 
count of  the  destruction  of  the  household  of  Mr. 
Calvin  [sic]  Willey,  and  various  bits  of  information, 
particularly  about  the  first  road  and  the  turnpike 
through  the  Notch. 

The  detailed  relation  of  his  trip  to  the  highland 
country  of  northern  New  Hampshire  was,  however, 
reserved  for  his  entertaining  volume  of  travels  in  the 
North  and  East,  which  was  published  anonymously 
in  1834  under  the  title,  "Things  as  They  Are;  or. 
Notes  of  a  Traveller  through  Some  of  the  Middle 
and  Northern  States."  ^  He  writes  pleasantly  of  the 
incidents  of  the  journey  and  of  the  people  he  encoun- 
tered, and  was  much  impressed  with  the  wildness 
and  the  sublimity  of  the  scenery  up  the  valley  of 
the  Ammonoosuc  and  through  the  Notch.  Finding  a 

^  In  the  first  edition  (1825)  there  are  a  number  of  pages  in  the 
appendix  devoted  to  the  White  Mountains.  The  later  editions  con- 
tain an  interesting  cut  of  the  Notch  (Willey)  House,  engraved  by 
O.  H.  Throop,  172  Broadway,  New  York. 

2  The  second  edition  was  published  in  1847  with  the  author's  name 
on  the  title-page  and  under  the  title,  Summer  Tours;  or,  Notes  of  a 
Traveller  through  Some  of  the  Middle  and  Northern  States.  The  book 
contains  crude  wood-cuts  of  the  "Notch  of  the  White  Hills,  from  the 
North"  (lower  frontispiece)  and  of "  One  of  the  White  Hills,  stripped 
of  forest  and  soil  by  the  storm  of  1826." 

Ill 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

party  of  travelers  assembled  at  Crawford's  who  had 
arranged  to  make  an  ascent  of  Mount  Washington, 
he  stopped  there  long  enough  to  join  them  in  this 
undertaking,  which  he  found  to  be  "a  very  labori- 
ous task."  It  was  accomplished,  however,  without 
mishap  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Crawford,  who 
pointed  out  the  objects  of  interest,  such  as  Lake 
Winnepesaukee  and  the  Androscoggin,  during  the 
occasional  intervals  of  an  unfavorable  day,  when  the 
clouds  for  a  short  time  broke  away.  The  entire  trip 
he  declares  was  a  great  delight  to  him.  He  concludes 
with  noting  his  thorough  appreciation  of  the  pleas- 
ure and  value  of  the  physical  exertion  necessary  for 
the  climb  and  with  some  reflections,  suggested  by 
the  agreeableness  of  the  experience,  as  to  the  tend- 
ency of  the  town  dweller  to  indolent  habits  and 
luxury. 

The  summer  of  1831  was  marked  by  the  coming 
of  many  visitors,  chief  among  whom  was  one  of  the 
most  noted  of  men  to  come  to  the  Mountains,  New 
Hampshire's  most  famous  son,  "a  member  of  Con- 
gress, Daniel  Webster."  He  arrived  at  Crawford's 
on  a  warm  day  in  June  and  asked  the  landlord  to  go 
up  the  mountain  with  him.  The  ascent  was  made 
"without  meeting  anything  worthy  of  note,  more 
than  was  common  for  me  to  find,"  says  the  guide, 
but  "things  appeared  interesting"  to  the  statesman, 
we  are  told.  On  their  arrival  at  the  summit,  Webster 
is  reported  to  have  made  a  brief  address,  as  follows: 
"Mount  Washington,  I  have  come  a  long  distance, 
have  toiled  hard  to  arrive  at  your  summit,  and  now 
you  seem  to  give  me  a  cold  reception,  for  which  I  am 

112 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

extremely  sorry,  as  I  shall  not  have  time  enough  to 
view  this  grand  prospect  which  now  lies  before  me, 
and  nothing  prevents  but  the  uncomfortable  atmos- 
phere in  which  you  reside!"  As  they  began  to  de- 
scend, there  was  a  snowstorm  on  the  top,  the  snow 
freezing  on  them  and  causing  them  to  suffer  with  the 
cold  until  they  had  got  some  distance  down.  They 
returned  safely,  however,  to  the  hostelry,  where  Mr. 
Webster  rejoined  his  women  friends,  whom  he  had 
left  there  while  he  made  the  ascent.  On  leaving,  the 
next  day,  the  statesman,  after  paying  his  bill,  gener- 
ously gave  his  host  and  guide  a  gratuity  of  twenty 
dollars.  In  honor  of  this  famous  son  of  the  Granite 
State,  his  name  has  been  given  to  the  grand  moun- 
tain ^  at  the  southern  end  of  the  Presidential  Range, 
where  the  chain  falls  off  sharply  into  the  Notch,  a 
peak  which  is,  as  Mr.  Oakes  has  declared,  "among 
the  most  unique  and  magnificent  objects  of  the 
White  Mountains." 

The  literary  associations  of  the  great  New  Eng- 
land romancer  with  the  White  Hills  have  been 
touched  upon  incidentally  in  sundry  places  in  this 
chronicle.  So  important,  indeed,  not  only  in  this 
respect  but  biographically  and  psychologically,  is 
his  connection  with  them  —  they  played  so  impor- 
tant a  part  in  his  life  —  that  the  record  of  it  demands 

^  Professor  C.  H.  Hitchcock  states  that  it  is  probable  that  the  name 
of  Mount  Webster  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Sidney  Willard  (after  whom, 
he  says,  Mount  Willard  is  named)  for  the  peak  known  to  earlier 
visitors  as  Notch  Mountain.  It  is  sometimes  stated  that  Mount 
Willard  was  named  by  Thomas  J.  Crawford  after  Mr.  Joseph  Willard, 
once  clerk  of  the  Superior  Court  in  Boston,  who  had  ascended  the 
mountain  with  Crawford. 

113 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

and  deserves  special  and  detailed  treatment.  Haw- 
thorne's physical  contact  with  the  region,  like  that 
of  his  college  classmate  Longfellow,  was  limited,  the 
parallel  even  extending  probably  to  the  number  of 
visits  and  to  their  being  made  in  early  and  in  late 
life  only.  The  character  of  the  visits  of  the  two  men 
were,  however,  very  different.  Hawthorne's  early 
one  was  a  brief  but  comprehensive  expedition 
through  the  heart  of  the  region,  while  Longfellow 
seems  to  have  penetrated  no  farther  than  Conway 
in  his  early  days.  Hawthorne's  later  journey  thither 
came  at  the  very  end  of  his  life  and  was  cut  short 
almost  before  it  had  begun,  death  overtaking  the 
weary  traveler  at  the  gateway  town  of  Plymouth. 

Furthermore,  unlike  Longfellow,  Hawthorne  owed 
much  to  the  White  Mountains. ,  They  were  one  of  the 
formative  influences  of  his  boyhood,  much  of  which 
was  passed  in  a  wilderness  home  at  Raymond,  Maine, 
on  the  shore  of  Sebago  Lake,  where  the  imaginative 
boy  could  see,  far  away  on  the  northwestern  horizon, 
the  peaks  and  slopes  of  the  Mountains,  "purple- 
blue  with  the  distance  and  vast,"  or,  much  of  the 
time,  glitteringly  white  in  their  covering  of  snow. 

The  first  decade  after  Hawthorne's  graduation 
from  Bowdoin  in  1825  was  a  dismal  period  in  his 
career.  He  returned  to  Salem  and  formed  several 
plans  of  life.  Authorship  was,  to  be  sure,  the  career 
that  appealed  to  him  and  that  Nature  intended  him 
to  pursue,  but  it  then  ofTered  little  chance  of  a  liveli- 
hood. So  strong,  however,  was  his  desire  to  follow 
his  bent  for  literature,  that  he  determined  to  be,  in 
any  case,  a  writer  of  fiction,  a  resolve  which  he  held 

114 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

to  in  the  face  of  the  most  discouraging  obstacles. 
After  the  failure  of  "Fanshawe,"  he  became  utterly 
disheartened,  and,  despairing  of  success  as  an  author, 
became  almost  a  hermit.  But  he  kept  on  writing,  re- 
turning to  his  original  plan  of  writing  short  stories, 
in  which  he  was  eventually  to  meet  with  success. 

Once  a  year  or  thereabouts  while  he  was  living  this 
solitary  life  in  his  mother's  house,  he  used  to  make  an 
excursion  of  a  few  weeks,  in  which,  he  says,  "I  en- 
joyed as  much  of  life  as  other  people  do  in  the  whole 
year's  round."  It  is  one  of  these  expeditions,  that  of 
the  autumn  of  1832,  that  is  of  present  interest  for 
us.  It  had  a  profound  result  upon  the  despondent 
author  and  bore  rich  literary  fruit.  This  excursion, 
which  was  to  the  White  Mountains,  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  Lake  Ontario,  and  Niagara  Falls,  had  the 
psychological  effect  of  raising  his  spirits  and  of  stim- 
ulating his  ambition,  and  provided  him  with  the 
materials  for  a  number  of  plots  for  short  stories. 
So  far  as  the  White  Mountains  are  concerned  the 
record  of  his  doings  there  is  a  strikingly  brief  one. 
Writing  to  his  mother  from  Burlington,  Vermont,  on 
September  16,  he  says:  "I  have  arrived  in  safety, 
having  passed  through  the  White  Hills,  stopping 
at  Ethan  Crawford's  house  and  climbing  Mount 
Washington."  On  this  same  journey  he  doubtless 
visited  the  Franconia  Notch  and  saw  that  marvelous 
countenance  he  was  to  immortalize  in  literature,  but 
there  is  no  record  of  the  fact.  Nor  do  we  hear  of 
other  expeditions  to  the  Mountains,  although  it  is 
possible  they  were  made.  From  such  a  limited  ac- 
quaintance with  the  region  as  this  fleeting  glimpse 

115 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  it  afforded,  what  remarkable  fruit  was  genius  able 
to  produce! 

The  passage  of  the  White  Mountain  Notch  and 
the  defile  itself  were  described  in  a  sketch  printed  in 
the  New  England  Magazine  for  November,  1835.  The 
sight  of  the  devastation  wrought  by  the  slides  in  the 
Notch  and  the  story  of  the  Willey  disaster  of  six 
years  before  his  visit  suggested  to  his  fertile  imagina- 
tion the  theme  for  his  allegorical  tale  of  "The  Am- 
bitious Guest."  His  stay  at  Crawford's  is  vividly 
described  in  the  sketch,  "Our  Evening  Party  among 
the  Mountains."  On  that  evening  he  heard  the 
legend  of  "The  Great  Carbuncle"  told,  which  he 
expanded  into  the  beautiful  tale  of  this  title. 

It  was  in  1840  that  the  idea  of  a  story  in  which  a 
human  countenance  gradually  assumes  the  aspect  of 
a  semblance  of  the  face  formed  of  rock,  and  becomes 
at  length  a  perfect  likeness  of  it,  presented  itself  to 
the  mind  of  Hawthorne  and  was  jotted  down  in  his 
notebooks.  Some  years  after  this  germ  developed 
about  the  Franconia  Profile  and  bore  fruit  in  the 
allegorical  tale  of  "The  Great  Stone  Face,"  in  which 
various  persons,  a  man  of  wealth,  a  military  man,  a 
statesman  (Hawthorne  is  supposed  to  have  had 
Daniel  Webster  in  mind  when  portraying  this  char- 
acter) ,  and  a  great  poet,  are  successively  acclaimed, 
but  mistakenly,  as  fulfilling  the  prophecy  that  a 
child  should  be  born  in  the  valley  who  should  become 
the  greatest  and  noblest  person  of  his  time  and 
whose  countenance  should  in  manhood  be  a  per- 
fect likeness  of  the  Great  Stone  Face.  The  poet, 
when  he  comes,  finds  the  true  person  in  a  humble 

116 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

dweller  in  the  valley,  Ernest,  a  wise  and  simple  man, 
beloved  by  all,  and  when  approaching  old  age  bearing 
a  striking  resemblance  to  the  natural  phenomenon. 

Written  in  Salem  in  1 848,  "The  Great  Stone  Face  " 
was  submitted  to  Whittier,  then  editor  of  The  Na- 
tional Era,  and  was  accepted  for  that  journal  and 
published  January  24,  1850,  the  author  receiving 
twenty-five  dollars  for  this  product  of  his  imagina- 
tion. Thus  ended  Hawthorne's  literary  connection 
with  the  White  Mountains. 

For  two  or  three  years  before  his  death,  Haw- 
thorne's health  had  been  gradually  failing  from  some 
mysterious  malady,  which  sapped  his  physical 
strength  and  brain-power  until  he  could  work  no 
more.  Several  journeys  were  taken  in  the  hope  that 
a  change  of  climate  and  scene  would  restore  his 
vitality  and  spirits,  but  although  they  had  a  bene- 
ficial effect  upon  him  the  improvement  was  only 
temporary.  After  the  sudden  death  in  April,  1864,  of 
Hawthorne's  publisher  and  intimate  friend,  William 
Davis  Ticknor,  almost  at  the  outset  of  a  southward 
journey  they  were  taking  together  for  their  health, 
Hawthorne  returned  to  his  home  a  complete  wreck. 

At  this  juncture  his  college  mate  and  lifelong 
friend,  ex-President  Franklin  Pierce,  came  at  once  to 
Concord  to  offer  his  services  in  Hawthorne's  behalf. 
He  could  suggest,  however,  nothing  more  hopeful 
than  a  journey  to  the  highlands  of  New  Hampshire, 
his  thought  being  that  the  mountain  air  might  re- 
invigorate  the  invalid.  They  had  to  wait  several 
weeks  for  settled  weather,  but  at  length  on  Thurs- 
day, May  12,  1864,  they  started  from  Boston  going 

117 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

by  rail  to  Concord,  New  Hampshire,  which  they 
reached  in  the  evening.  The  weather  being  un- 
favorable and  Hawthorne  feeble,  they  remained 
there  until  the  following  Monday,  when  they 
started  on.  Traveling  by  easy  stages  in  a  carriage, 
they  reached  Plymouth  on  Wednesday  evening,  the 
1 8th,  about  six  o'clock. 

Seeing  that  Hawthorne  was  becoming  very  help- 
less, General  Pierce  >  decided  not  to  pursue  their 
journey  farther  and  thought  of  sending  the  next 
day  for  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  Una  to  join  them  there. 
But  alas !  there  was  to  be  no  next  day  for  Hawthorne. 
Some  time  in  the  night,  in  Room  No.  9  in  the  Pemi- 
gewasset  House,  the  novelist  passed  quietly  away, 
so  quietly  indeed  that  his  death  was  not  discovered 
by  his  friend  until  several  hours  afterward. 

The  connection  of  another  great  New  England 
author,  Emerson,  with  this  region  appears  to  have 
been  limited  to  one  visit,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  ascertain.  This  sojourn  is  well  worthy  of  record, 
however,  because  made  at  a  crisis  in  his  career,  at 
the  time,  indeed,  when  the  young  minister  of  the 
Second  Church  of  Boston  had  just  made  known  to 
his  people  his  repugnance  to  the  Communion  rite 
and  had  proposed  its  modification.  The  matter  hav- 
ing been  referred  to  a  committee  for  consideration, 
the  troubled  clergyman,  meanwhile,  betook  him- 
self, during  a  suspension  of  the  church  services  while 
some  repairs  were  being  made,  to  the  Mountains  to 
ponder  his  course  of  action  and  to  get  spiritual  re- 
fresh  ment. 

This  was  in  July,  1832,  when  he  was  twenty-nine 
118 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

years  old,  the  same  year,  by  the  way,  in  which  his 
future  fellow  townsman,  Hawthorne,  made  the  trip 
through  the  Mountains  which  was  so  important 
an  incident  in  his  career,  but  from  a  very  different 
standpoint.  On  the  6th,  Emerson  has  an  entry  in 
his  Journal,  dated  at  Conway,  in  which  he  sets  down 
the  question,  ''What  is  the  message  that  is  given  me 
to  communicate  next  Sunday?"  So  it  is  probable 
that  he  preached  by  invitation  in  the  village  church. 

The  end  of  the  following  week  found  him  at  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford's,  where  he  remained  over  Sunday. 
The  entry  in  the  Journal  for  Saturday  contains  a 
statement  which  gives  his  idea  of  the  benefit  to  be 
derived  by  withdrawing  to  the  hills.  It  has  an  ironi- 
cal touch  for  us  when  we  make  a  mental  comparison 
of  the  primitive  conditions  of  this  particular  locality 
in  that  day  with  the  busy  activity  and  luxury  which 
characterize  it  to-day. 

"The  good  of  going  to  the  mountains,"  he  de- 
clares, **  is  that  life  is  reconsidered ;  it  is  far  from  the 
slavery  of  your  own  modes  of  living,  and  you  have 
opportunity  of  viewing  the  town  at  such  a  distance 
as  may  afford  you  a  just  view,  nor  can  you  have  any 
such  mistaken  apprehension  as  might  be  expected 
from  the  place  you  occupy  and  the  round  of  customs 
you  run  at  home." 

Sunday  in  this  environment  without  the  outward 
accompaniments  of  religion  was  evidently  dull  and 
without  pleasure  for  the  sensitive  soul  of  the  philoso- 
pher, for  he  writes  on  this  day,  "A  few  low  moun- 
tains, a  great  many  clouds  always  covering  the  great 
peaks,  a  circle  of  woods  to  the  horizon,  a  peacock  on 

119 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  fence  or  in  the  yard,  and  two  travellers  no  bet- 
ter contented  than  myself  in  the  plain  parlour  of 
this  house  make  up  the  whole  picture  of  this  un- 
sabbatized  Sunday." 

Although  there  are  occasional  references  to  the 
White  Mountains,  as  to  "Agiochook"  and  the 
"Notch  Mountains,"  in  Emerson's  writings,  the  re- 
gion seems  to  have  made  no  great  impression  on 
him.  He  found  his  place  of  rest  and  refreshment 
amid  the  quieter  beauties  of  the  region  in  south- 
western New  Hampshire  dominated  by  Monadnock, 
which,  says  Starr  King,  "the  genius  of  Mr.  Emerson 
has  made  .  .  .  the  noblest  mountain  in  literature." 

What  more  grateful  honor  could  come  to  a  moun- 
tain-lover than  the  permanent  association  of  his 
name  with  the  most  striking  piece  of  scenery  of  its 
kind  in  New  England !  Such  was  the  good  fortune 
of  Edward  Tuckerman,  Professor  of  Botany  in  Am- 
herst College  from  1858  to  his  death  in  1886,  and  in- 
defatigable explorer  of  the  White  Mountains,  whose 
name  is  perpetuated  in  the  region  he  loved  so  well  by 
having  been  given  to  the  wonderful  ravine  on  the 
east  side  of  Mount  Washington,  north  of  Boott 
Spur.  This  remarkable  gorge,  because  of  the  sublim- 
ity of  its  steep  cliffs  with  their  semicircular  sweep, 
its  close  relation  to  the  chief  summit,  its  famous 
snow  arch,  and  the  comparative  ease  with  which  it 
may  be  traversed,  has  become  by  far  the  most  widely 
known  of  the  White  Mountain  ravines.  The  route  of 
several  of  the  early  explorers  ^  in  ascending  Mount 

*  Probably  of  Gorges  and  Vines  in  1642.  The  party  of  Captain 
Evans  traversed  it  in  1774.   Mr.  S.  B.  Beckett,  author  of  a  railroad 

120 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

Washington,  hundreds  of  pedestrians  now  pass 
through  it  every  year  and  clamber  up  the  side  of  the 
Mountain  CoHseum,  as  the  upper  part  of  the  gorge 
or  the  ravine  proper  is  sometimes  called. 

The  kindly  professor,  who  for  his  contributions 
to  our  knowledge  of  the  botany  of  the  region  well 
merited  the  local  distinction  conferred  upon  him, 
first  visited  the  Mountains  in  1837.  He  made  collec- 
tions in  that  year  and  the  following  three  years,  and 
again  made  botanical  explorations  from  1842  ^  to 
1853,  spending  each  year  several  months  in  this 
region.  He  determined  the  relationship  and  range 
of  many  species  and  varieties  of  the  plants,  especially 
the  lichens,  found  here.  Starr  King,  to  whose  book 
Professor  Tuckerman  contributed  two  chapters,  ap- 
plies to  him  Emerson's  description  of  the  forest  seer 
beginning :  — 

"  A  lover  true,  who  knew  by  heart 
Each  joy  the  mountain  dales  impart." 

Speaking  of  the  Mountain  region  when  he  first 
visited  it.  Professor  Tuckerman  says,  revealing  by 
his  words  his  simple  tastes  and  love  of  wild  nature : 
"It  was  then  a  secluded  district,  the  inns  offering 
only  the  homely  cheer  of  country  fare,  and  the  paths 
to  Mount  Washington  rarely  trodden  by  any  who 

guide-book  to  Portland,  the  White  Mountains,  and  Montreal,  pub- 
lished at  the  first-named  city  in  1853,  and  a  gentleman  from  Charles- 
ton, South  Carolina,  made  a  thorough  exploration  of  the  ravine  in 
1852,  accompanied  on  a  part  of  their  trip  by  J.  S.  Hall,  one  of  the 
builders  of  the  first  Summit  House.  Mr.  Beckett  and  his  companion 
are  responsible  for  the  names  Hermit  Lake,  the  Fall  of  a  Thousand 
Streams,  and  the  Mountain  Coliseum. 
1  His  companion  that  year  was  Asa  Gray. 

121 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

did  not  prize  the  very  way,  rough  as  it  might  be, 
too  much  to  wish  for  easier  ones." 

It  is  but  natural  that  such  a  lover  of  the  moun- 
tains and  the  woods  as  Henry  Thoreau  should  make 
journeys  to  the  White  Mountains,  where  he  would 
expect  to  find  so  much  to  interest  him  both  in  the 
way  of  scenery  and  in  the  way  of  natural  history. 
We  are  not  surprised,  then,  to  find  the  records  of 
such  trips  in  his  Journal. 

His  first  visit  was  made  as  a  sort  of  supplement  or 
side-trip  to  his  famous  boating  excursion,  the  record 
of  which  forms  the  groundwork  of  his  first  literary 
venture,  "A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack 
Rivers."  The  bare  facts  of  this  trip  to  the  Moun- 
tains, which  was  taken  in  September,  1839,  are  set 
down  in  the  Journal  and  some  details  are  to  be  found 
under  "Thursday  "  in  the  "Week."  I  give  the  course 
of  the  journey  and  its  incidents  as  recorded  in  the 
former.  Having  left  the  boat  near  Hooksett,  as 
it  was  impracticable  to  proceed  farther  in  it,  the 
brothers,  Henry  and  John,  walked  to  Concord, 
New  Hampshire,  from  which  town  they  went  by 
stage  on  Friday,  the  6th,  to  Plymouth,  a  distance  of 
forty  miles,  finishing  out  the  day  by  going  on  foot 
to  Tilton's  Inn  in  Thornton.  The  next  day  they 
walked  through  Peeling  (Woodstock)  and  Lincoln  to 
Franconia,  pausing  on  the  way  to  visit  the  Flume, 
the  Basin,  and  the  Notch,  and  to  see  the  Old  Man  of 
the  Mountain.  On  the  8th  the  sturdy  trampers  went 
on  to  Thomas  J.  Crawford's  hotel,  where  they  stayed 
on  the  loth.  The  following  day  was  devoted  to  an 
ascent  of  Mount  Washington,  after  the  completion 

122 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

of  which  they  rode  to  Conway.  They  returned  to 
Concord  by  stage  on  the  nth,  and  the  next  day  re- 
gained their  boat  at  Hooksett  and  started  on  the 
return  voyage. 

July,  1858,  was  the  time  of  Thoreau's  second  visit 
to  this  region.  Setting  out  in  a  private  carriage  with 
a  friend  on  the  2d,  he  ascended  Red  Hill  on  the  5th, 
and  proceeded  through  Tarn  worth,  Conway,  North 
Conway,  and  Jackson  to  the  Glen  House.  Having 
previously  engaged  Wentworth,  who  "has  lived 
here  [four  miles  above  Jackson]  thirty  years,  and 
is  a  native,"  as  baggage-carrier  and  camp-keeper, 
he  started  at  11.30  a.m.  on  the  7th  to  ascend  the 
Mountain  road.  After  spending  the  night  at  a  shanty 
near  the  foot  of  the  ledge,  with  "a  merry  collier  and 
his  assistant,  who  had  been  making  coal  for  the 
summit,  and  were  preparing  to  leave  the  next  morn- 
ing," Thoreau  completed  the  ascent.  As  a  result  of 
an  earlier  start,  he  reached  the  Summit  half  an  hour 
before  the  rest  of  his  party  and  enjoyed  a  good  view, 
which  was  hidden  from  his  companions  by  a  cloud 
that  settled  down  before  their  arrival. 

Descending  the  next  day  (with  some  difficulty 
owing  to  a  dense  fog)  into  Tuckerman's  Ravine,  over 
the  rocks  and  the  snow,  which  latter  he  notes  was 
"  unexpectedly  hard  and  dangerous  to  traverse,"  the 
party  camped  about  a  third  of  a  mile  above  Hermit 
Lake.  While  here  the  guide,  he  records,  made  a  fire 
without  removing  the  moss  and  it  spread  even  above 
the  limit  of  trees,  "thus  leaving  our  mark  on  the 
mountain-side."  A  friend  for  whom  he  had  left  a 
note  at  the  Glen  House  joined  them  at  this  camp, 

123 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

and  the  party  slept  In  the  tent  the  night  of  the  8th, 
with  some  discomfort,  their  fire  being  put  out  by 
rain.  The  next  afternoon,  Thoreau,  in  returning 
from  an  ascent  of  the  stream,  sprained  his  ankle  ^  so 
badly  that  he  could  not  sleep  that  night,  or  walk  the 
next  day.  So  they  stayed  at  the  camp  until  the  12th, 
when,  the  weather  clearing  up,  they  descended  and 
passed  the  night  at  a  camp  a  mile  and  a  half  west  of 
Gorham.  Two  days  more  brought  them  through 
Randolph,  Kilkenny,  Jefferson  Hill,  Whitefield,  and 
Bethlehem  to  the  Franconia  Notch,  where  they 
camped  the  night  of  the  14th  half  a  mile  up  the  side 
of  Lafayette,  which  peak  was  ascended  on  the  15th, 
a  good  view  being  had  of  near  points.  After  descend- 
ing, they  rode  to  West  Thornton  and  then  began 
their  homeward  journey. 

It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  Thoreau's  record  is 
interspersed  with  frequent  items  of  information  on 
his  special  interests,  the  birds  and  flowers.  He  con- 
cludes his  account  of  this  journey  with  some  observa- 
tions as  to  the  best  views  and  with  a  list  of  the  plants 
found  at  different  limits  on  Mount  Washington. 

Another  literary  visitor  to  the  White  Mountains 
in  the  pre-railroad  days,  of  whose  experiences  on  the 
excursion  we  have  some  account,  was  the  future 

^  Emerson,  when  giving,  in  his  paper  on  Thoreau,  instances  of 
"pieces  of  luck"  which  happened  to  the  naturalist,  mentions  his  fall 
in  Tuckerman's  Ravine,  and  states  that,  "As  he  was  in  the  act  of 
getting  up  from  his  fall,  he  saw  for  the  first  time  the  leaves  of  the 
Arnica  mollis."  Unfortunately,  this  pretty  story  is  not  in  accordance 
with  fact.  Thoreau's  finding  of  the  plant  took  place,  we  learn  from 
the  Journal,  the  day  before  and  not  at  this  time.  Nor  was  he  alone  and 
made  helpless  by  his  fall,  and  so  in  danger  of  perishing  had  not  some 
one  chanced  into  the  ravine  and  been  attracted  by  his  shouts,  as  one 
account  says. 

124 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

historian  of  the  struggle  between  France  and  Eng- 
land for  supremacy  in  North  America,  Francis 
Parkman.^  As  early  as  1841,  his  sophomore  year  at 
Harvard,  the  studious  young  man  had  fixed  upon 
the  writing  of  the  history  of  the  conflict  between 
the  two  European  Powers  on  the  soil  of  this  conti- 
nent as  his  life-work,  and  even  before  that  he  had 
formed  a  passion  for  the  woods  and  outdoor  life. 
With  a  wisdom  unusual  for  his  years,  he  saw  that  a 
much  wider  range  of  knowledge  and  experience  than 
could  be  gained  in  the  study  would  be  needed  to 
equip  him  to  handle  adequately  such  a  theme,  and  in 
this  equipment  a  familiarity  with  the  topography 
and  life  of  the  wilderness  regions  with  which  he  was 
to  deal  was,  he  judged,  a  very  important  element. 
Having,  as  a  preliminary  step,  begun,  on  entering 
college,  a  course  of  physical  training  designed  to 
develop  the  utmost  strength,  agility,  and  endurance 
of  which  he  was  capable,  he  followed  this  up  with  a 
succession  of  journeys  into  the  wilds  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  to  secure  the  background  which 
he  had  foreseen  he  would  need  for  his  future  work. 
To  this  preparatory  training  the  vacations  and  lei- 
sure of  a  number  of  years  were  devoted. 

In  these  days  of  railroads  and  summer  resorts  in 
the  White  Hills  it  is  hard  to  think  of  them  as  a  wil- 
derness region,  but  such  they  were  in  1841,  when 
Parkman,    wishing  to   begin    his  explorations   by 

^  Parkman  kept  a  diary  of  each  of  his  vacation  trips,  the  best  por- 
tions of  which  were  used  in  writing  various  books,  but  the  part  relating 
to  his  White  Mountain  sojourn  is  for  the  most  part  unpublished.  His 
account  of  his  adventure  at  the  Willey  Slide  is  quoted  in  C.  H.  Farn- 
ham's  A  Life  of  Francis  Parkman. 

125 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

familiarizing  himself  with  the  wilder  parts  of  his  na- 
tive New  England,  made,  as  the  first  of  such  trips, 
an  excursion  to  northern  New  Hampshire. 

Accompanied  by  a  classmate,  Daniel  Denlson 
Slade,^  Parkman  passed  around  Lake  Winnepe- 
saukee,  and  through  the  valley  of  the  Saco  and  the 
Crawford  Notch.  Thence  the  pair  crossed  to  the 
Franconia  Range,  where  they  spent  several  delight- 
ful days.  They  then  retraced  in  part  their  course, 
and  crossed  over  to  the  Connecticut  River,  whence 
they  proceeded  to  Colebrook  and  the  Dixville  Notch. 
An  ascent  of  the  Magalloway  River  with  Indian 
guides  concluded  the  excursion.  While  they  were  so- 
journing at  Crawford's  inn  (the  Notch  House),  the 
ascent  of  Mount  Washington  was  made.  An  inter- 
esting human  touch  appears  in  the  record  that  Park- 
man  was  greatly  pleased  by  the  "strength  and  spirit 
and  good-humor  "  shown  on  this  occasion  by  a  young 
woman,  who  was  a  member  of  a  lively  party  he  had 
fallen  in  with,  and  who  had  previously  charmed  him 
by  the  "laughing  philosophy"  with  which  she  had 
taken  a  "ducking"  in  his  company  while  passing 
through  the  Notch  on  the  stage  in  a  pouring  rain.  It 
maybe  added  that  the  acquaintance  so  pleasantly 
begun  ripened  into  a  lifelong  friendship. 

The  most  noteworthy  feature  of  this  first  trip  of 
Parkman's  was  an  exploit  undertaken  by  him  alone 
and  characterized  by  him  as  "the  most  serious  ad- 
venture it  was  ever  my  lot  to  encounter."  This  little 
excursion,  which  nearly  cost  him  his  life,  was  not  a 

*  Mr.  Slade  contributed  an  interesting  account  of  the  trip  to  the 
New  England  Magazine  for  September,  1894. 

126 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

premeditated  one.  While  staying  at  Crawford's  he 
walked  one  day  down  the  Notch  to  the  Willey  House, 
and  out  of  curiosity  began  to  ascend  the  pathway  of 
the  avalanche.  Coming  to  the  "inaccessible  preci- 
pices" which  Professor  Silliman  had  noted  as  pre- 
venting his  further  progress  in  ascending  this  place 
a  few  years  before,  the  adventurous  young  man 
determined  to  scale  them,  and  succeeded  in  doing 
so  "with  considerable  difficulty  and  danger."  The 
descent  was  a  yet  more  perilous  undertaking,  as,  in 
order  to  get  out  of  the  ravine  in  which  he  found  him- 
self, he  was  compelled  first  to  climb  up  its  steep  and 
decaying  walls  to  the  surface  of  the  mountain.  His 
splendid  nerve  and  presence  of  mind  enabled  him 
to  achieve  this  well-nigh  impossible  and  extremely 
hazardous  climb.  His  badly  torn  clothing,  his  lac- 
erated fingers,  and  bruised  legs  were  material  indica- 
tions of  the  difficulty  of  the  feat,  the  recital  of  the 
fact  and  the  details  of  whose  accomplishment  aston- 
ished the  company  at  the  hotel  and  Landlord  Craw- 
ford as  well. 

"The  entire  journey  was  a  delight  to  us,"  says 
Mr.  Slade,  "and  in  Parkman  especially  it  augmented 
the  love  for  the  wild  and  picturesque,  with  which  he 
had  become  enamored,  and  upon  which  he  expati- 
ated most  fully  in  his  diary." 

Three  of  America's  most  noted  preachers  and 
patriots  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  Phillips  Brooks,  and  Thomas  Starr  King, 
were  lovers  of  the  White  Mountains.  The  pastor  of 
Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  made  a  short  visit  to 
the  region  in  the  early  days,  and  in  the  latter  part  of 

127 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

his  life  spent  a  portion  of  every  summer  there;  the 
rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  and  Bishop  of 
Massachusetts,  tramped  the  hills  as  a  young  man 
and  visited  them  at  least  once  in  later  life ;  the  visits 
of  the  Boston  and  San  Francisco  divine  had  as  one 
result  the  creation  of  the  most  famous  of  books  on 
these  mountains. 

The  eloquent  pastor  of  the  Hollis  Street  Society 
of  Boston  appears  to  have  first  visited  the  Moun- 
tains in  July,  1849.^  A  passionate  lover  of  the  grand 
and  beautiful  in  Nature,  he  became  interested  in  the 
region  his  name  is  to  be  forever  associated  with, 
through  his  intimacy  with  another  enthusiast  for 
mountain  scenery.  This  was  his  elder  friend  and  al- 
ways congenial  companion,  Dr.  Hosea  Ballou,  2d,  a 
noted  Universalist  clergyman,  the  first  president  and 
one  of  the  founders  of  Tufts  College.  Dr.  Ballou 
made  the  first  of  a  series  of  visits  to  the  White 
Mountains  in  1844.  He  was,  as  his  notebooks  testify, 
a  most  careful  observer,  and  he  had  made  himself 
familiar  by  study  with  most  of  the  great  mountains 
of  the  earth.  Thus  he  was  eminently  qualified  to 
describe  accurately  the  scenery  of  the  New  Hamp- 
shire highlands.  After  his  first  two  visits  he  "em- 
bodied," as  Mr.  Frothingham  puts  it,  "his  fondness 
for  them,  in  a  beautiful  and  eloquent  paper." 

^  Richard  Frothingham,  in  A  Tribute  to  Thomas  Starr  King,  says: 
"He  first  visited  the  White  Hills  at  the  age  of  thirteen  [he  was  born 
December  17,  1824],  probably  with  his  father;  but  I  have  no  facts 
as  to  this  visit."  The  author,  Hosea  Starr  Ballou,  of  the  Life  of 
Hosea  Ballou,  2d,  D.D.,  thinks  this  statement  is  apparently  an  error. 
King  himself,  in  The  White  Hills,  speaks  of  seeing  Abel  Crawford 
"in  the  year  1849,  when  we  made  our  first  visit  to  the  White 
Hills." 

128 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

This  article, »  entitled  "The  White  Mountains," 
which  appeared  in  The  Universalist  Quarterly  for 
April,  1846,  turned  Starr  King's  attention  to  the 
White  Hills,  led  him  to  visit  them,  and  was  thus  a 
progenitor  of  the  greater  work. 

King's  companions  on  his  first  visit  were  a  lifelong 
friend,  Professor  Benjamin  F.  Tweed,  principal  of 
the  Bunker-Hill  Grammar  School  of  Charlestown 
and  afterwards  professor  in  Tufts  College,  and  two 
others,  who  joined  King  and  Tweed  at  Lowell.  The 
party  took  the  usual  route  of  the  pre-railroad  days, 
going  to  Center  Harbor  on  Lake  Winnepesaukee  the 
first  day,  delaying  to  ascend  Red  Hill  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  in  the  afternoon  and  night  traveling  in  an 
overloaded  stage  to  Conway,  part  of  this  journey 
being  made  through  a  forest  fire  and  a  thunder- 
storm. The  belated  travelers  did  not  reach  their 
destination  until  half -past  eleven,  but  they  were 
happy  in  having  seen  a  never-to-be-forgotten  sight, 
that  of  the  woods  on  fire  on  the  entire  surface  of  the 
highest  summit  of  the  Ossipee  Range.  The  following 
day,  which  was  Saturday,  they  proceeded  through 
the  Notch  to  Crawford's  Notch  House,  where  Sun- 
day was  spent.  When  they  were  standing  directly  in 
front  of  the  Willey  House,  a  heavy  peal  of  thunder 
and  the  associations  and  scenes  of  the  place  pro- 
foundly moved  them,  Mr.  King  records.  Monday 
morning,  July  23,  the  ascent  of  Mount  Washington 
was  made  on  horseback,  there  being  twelve  in  the 

^  "On  this  subject,"  says  Mr.  Frothingham,  "I  know  nothing 
which  had  appeared  superior  to  it;  and  well  remember  Mr.  King's 
enthusiasm  for  the  White  Hills  at  the  time  of  its  publication." 

129 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

party,  which  included  two  guides.  They  arrived  at 
the  summit  at  half-past  eleven,  dined  out  on  the 
rocks,  —  there  was  then  no  shelter  there,  —  had  a 
"most  magnificent"  view,  as  the  day  was  "very 
clear,"  and,  after  having  remained  an  hour,  began 
the  descent,  which  Mr.  King  found  so  much  more 
tiresome  than  the  ascent  that  he  "walked  more  than 
half  the  way."  It  began  to  rain  when  they  reached 
the  summit  of  Clinton  and  most  of  the  party  were 
drenched  when  they  regained  the  tavern.  A  visit  to 
the  Franconia  Notch  and  its  objects  of  interest  com- 
pleted the  tour. 

Mr.  King  repeated  his  visit  many  times,  making 
his  headquarters  at  Gorham,  and  in  1853  began  to 
print  accounts  of  his  explorations  ^  in  the  Boston 
TranscripL  After  having  for  ten  years  viewed  the 
Mountains,  in  their  beauty  and  grandeur  in  winter 
as  well  as  in  summer,  he  embodied  the  results  of  his 
observations  and  explorations  in  "The  White  Hills: 
Their  Legends,  Landscape,  and  Poetry,"  which  was 
published  in  1859  on  the  eve  of  his  final  departure  for 
California  and  which  was  at  once  received  with 
great  favor. ^ 

This  noble  volume,  which  one  is  safe  in  prophesy- 
ing will  never  be  equaled  or  superseded  in  its  field, 
is  thus  characterized  by  Mr.  Frothingham:    "This 

^  A  companion  for  several  seasons  in  his  explorations  was  Henry 
Wheelock  Ripley,  who  prepared  editions  of  the  Crawford  History, 
printed  in  1883  and  1886,  and  who  purposed  to  add  to  that  work  a 
modern  history  of  the  Mountains. 

*  Mr.  King's  name  is  preserved  in  the  Mountains  by  two  fine 
memorials,  Mount  Starr  King  in  Jefferson,  named  in  1861,  and  King's 
Ravine,  the  tremendous  gorge,  first  explored  and  described  by  him, 
on  the  north  side  of  Mount  Adams. 

130 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

production  is  far  more  than  a  description  of  the 
White  Hills;  its  rich  descriptions  of  every  variety  of 
landscape  apply  to  all  natural  scenes,  and  bring  out 
their  inmost  meaning.  There  is  much  of  himself  in 
this  volume,  of  his  rare  spiritual  insight,  —  much 
of  what  his  cultured  and  reverent  eye  saw  in  the 
beauty  and  the  grandeur  that  God  is  creating  every 
day." 

Less  notably  associated  with  the  Mountains  in  a 
literary  way  than  Starr  King,  but  far  more  memo- 
rably connected  with  them  in  a  ministerial  way,  was 
the  great  preacher  and  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church, 
Brooklyn's  most  famous  citizen,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  The  year  1856  appears  to  be  the  date  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  earliest  acquaintance  with  the  region. 
He  evidently  stayed  at  the  Crawford  House,  then 
kept  by  J.  L.  Gibb.  Humorously  declaring  himself 
"only  a  freshman,  and  in  the  first  term  at  that,"  in 
"a  university  of  mountains,"  he  does  not,  he  says, 
in  the  introductory  paragraph  of  his  paper  contrib- 
uted to  The  Independent  at  that  time,  "propose  to 
set  forth  and  write  out  the  whole  of  the  White 
Mountains."  " I  will  give  you,"  he  continues,  "just 
a  sprig  of  my  experience."  What  his  readers  get, 
however,  is  an  altogether  delightful  essay,  ^  the  first 
part  of  which  gives  an  account  of  a  descent  on  horse- 
back from  the  top  of  Mount  Washington,  an  expe- 
rience which  gave  him  "one  half-hour  of  extreme 
pleasure  and  two  hours  of  common  pleasure."  It  is 

^  "A  Time  at  the  White  Mountains,"  one  of  his  regular  contribu- 
tions, over  his  customary  signature,  a  "  #",  to  The  Independent  (July 
31,  1856).   It  is  reprinted  in  Eyes  and  Ears. 

131 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

entirely  to  the  "half-hour  of  extreme  pleasure," 
which  was  a  time  passed  in  separation  from  his 
party,  that  this  part  of  the  essay  is  devoted.  In  elo- 
quent and  beautiful  language  he  tells  what  he  saw 
and  what  he  thought  and  felt  when  solitary  in  such 
a  place. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  essay  his  descriptions  of 
a  beautiful  stream,  which  joins  the  Saco  near  the 
hotel,  of  its  pools,  its  "avenue  of  cascades"  (one  of 
which,  a  double  one,  was  afterwards  given  his  name), 
and  its  environment  of  forest  and  mountains,  and  of 
the  glorious  view,  are  charmingly  done.  Especially 
pleasing  are  his  word-picture  of  the  pool  he  selected 
for  a  refreshing  plunge  and  his  description  of  the 
witnessed  actions  and  imagined  thoughts  of  some 
trout  whose  "  mountain  homestead  "  he  had  so  greatly 
and  strangely  disturbed. 

Mr.  Beecher's  becoming  an  annual  visitor  to  the 
White  Mountains  was  on  this  wise.  For  nearly  thirty 
years  he  had  been  a  sufferer  from  that  distressing 
malady,  hay  fever,  which  attacked  him  every  year 
about  the  i6th  of  August,  almost  to  the  day.  For 
nearly  six  weeks  he  was  sorely  afflicted,  reading, 
writing,  and  almost  all  forms  of  mental  work  being 
impossible.  Finally  his  attention  was  called  to  the 
relief  that  the  air  of  the  White  Mountains  affords 
many  sufferers,  and,  trying  the  experiment,  he 
happily  found  exemption  there  from  the  attacks  of 
the  disease.  He  returned  year  after  year  in  the 
seventies  to  the  Twin  Mountain  House  and  soon  the 
region  became  one  of  his  subsidiary  pulpits,  as  his 
thirst  for  doing  his  Master's  work  was  such  as  not 

132 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

to  allow  him  to  lose  any  opportunity.  The  first  year 
or  two  he  rested,  but  after  that  he  began  holding  in- 
formal services  on  Sundays. 

The  use  of  the  large  hotel  parlor  followed,  with 
preaching  every  Sunday  morning.  Soon  the  capacity 
of  this  summer  church  was  outgrown,  and  then  one 
of  the  large  tents  used  at  the  State  fairs  was  secured, 
benches  being  provided  for  the  congregation.  In 
this,  during  the  last  two  or  three  years  that  he  visited 
the  Twin  Mountain  House,  he  preached  regularly 
every  Sunday  for  six  weeks.  For  a  number  of  years 
also,  at  the  request  of  the  guests,  he  led  the  daily 
service  of  morning  prayer.  This,  his  summer  parish,  ^ 
became  his  most  prominent  field  of  work  outside  of 
Plymouth  Church.  From  the  neighboring  hotels  and 
near-by  towns  people  came  by  hundreds  to  hear  the 
famous  preacher,  filling  the  great  tent.  Thus  he  made 
his  infirmity  an  instrumentality  for  good. 

It  was  in  the  first  year  (1862)  of  his  rectorship  of 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  Philadelphia,  that 
Phillips  Brooks,  tired  from  six  months  of  hard  labor 
in  ministering  to  his  large  parish  and  in  keeping  the 
many  engagements  that  pressed  upon  him,  made  his 
first  visit  to  the  White  Mountains.  To  the  vacation 
of  this  year  "he  had  looked  forward,"  says  his  biog- 
rapher, "with  the  eagerness  of  a  schoolboy,  to  whom 
the  holiday  is  the  most  real  part  of  his  existence." 
Accompanied  by  the  Reverend  Charles  A.  L.  Rich- 
ards and  the  Reverend  George  Augustus  Strong, 

^  In  1875  he  published  A  Summer  Parish:  Sabbath  Discourses  and 
Morning  Service  of  Prayer,  at  the  "Twin  Mountain  House,"  White 
Mountains,  New  Hampshire,  during  the  summer  of  1874. 

133 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

his  fellow  students  and  close  companions  at  the 
theological  seminary  and  lifelong  intimate  friends, 
he  set  out,  on  August  4,  to  make  the  tour  of  the 
Mountains,  an  excursion  which  was  not  so  common 
then  as  later,  and  which  was  a  notable  event  in  their 
lives.  Phillips  Brooks  was  not  fond  of  exercise  in 
those  days,  or  indeed  at  any  time  in  his  life,  but  was 
endowed  with  rugged  health.  He  did  not  like  walk- 
ing, or  at  any  rate  did  not  practice  it  as  a  regular 
form  of  exercise,  but  while  staying  in  Boston  in  July 
he  had  taken  lessons  in  horseback  riding,  which  activ- 
ity proved  of  service  to  him  on  this  trip.  The  party 
made  their  headquarters  at  the  Glen  House,  and 
Brooks  did  his  share  of'  mountain-climbing  with  the 
others.  Their  initial,  or,  as  it  were,  practice  climbs 
were  up  Mounts  Surprise  ^  and  Hayes,  two  of  Starr 
King's  favorite  viewpoints,  near  Gorham.  In  the 
course  of  their  wanderings  they  were  joined  by  Mr. 
Brooks's  friend,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Cooper,  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  by  his  brother  William,  of  Boston.  The 
trip  culminated  in  an  excursion  which  came  near  to 
putting  an  end  to  the  great  preacher's  career  then 
and  there.  Inspired  by  Starr  King's  exuberant  en- 
thusiasm for  the  sublimity  of  the  views  to  be  gained 
by  making  such  an  expedition  and  for  the  physical 
joys  of  the  experience,  the  travelers  determined  upon 
doing  what  was  then  known  as  "going  over  the 
Peaks,"  which  meant  crossing  the  Northern  Peaks 
from  Madison  to  Washington.  When  it  is  remem- 
bered that  there  were  then  no  defined  paths  and 

*  The  biography  of  Phillips  Brooks  has  it  "  Mount  Suspense," 
which  seems  to  be  a  slip. 

134 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

guiding  marks  or  signs  for  the  trampers  and  that 
guides  were  few,  the  difficulty  of  the  excursion  in 
those  days  will  be  at  once  evident.  Having  secured 
a  man  as  guide  who  was  said  to  know  the  way,  they 
started  from  the  Glen  House  at  six  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  August  12,  intending  to  make  a  two  days* 
trip  of  it.  After  going  two  miles  or  so  on  the  road  to 
Gorham,  they  struck  up  the  mountain-side.  Six 
hours'  severe  labor  in  the  hot  sun  and  close  air  and 
over  fallen  timber  and  deep  beds  of  moss  brought 
them  to  the  timber-line.  They  climbed  Madison, 
crossed  its  two  summits,  dined  between  Madison  and 
Adams,  and,  after  ascending  the  latter,  passed  on  to 
Jefferson.  At  the  base  of  this  peak  they  had  meant  to 
camp,  but,  as  it  was  blowing  "half  a  hurricane,"  the 
guide  insisted  that  the  wind  was  too  high  and  the 
temperature  too  low  to  make  camping  safe  for  heated 
and  tired  men  and  that  therefore  they  must  push  for- 
ward. It  was  at  sunset  that  they  stood  on  the  summit 
of  Jefferson,  and  there  were  still  two  or  three  hours 
of  good  work  before  them.  Mr.  Brooks,  for  the  first 
part  of  the  day,  had  stood  the  prolonged  exertion  as 
well  as  any  of  the  party,  but  somewhere  on  the  part 
of  the  way  which  they  were  now  passing  over,  the 
young  giant,  who  in  those  days  required  double 
rations  and  on  this  occasion  had  been  provided  for 
only  on  the  scale  of  ordinary  men,  began  to  flag,  and 
declared  he  could  go  no  farther.  He  implored  his 
companions  to  leave  him  under  the  shelter  of  a  rock, 
with  a  shawl,  for  the  night,  but  as,  of  course,  they 
would  not  hear  to  this  and  as  they  entreated  him  to 
go  on,  he  struggled  forward  for  a  few  minutes  at  a 

135 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

time  and  then  flung  himself  down  exhausted  for  a 
long  rest.  Night  came  on  and  the  way  was  lost  in 
the  darkness,  by  the  guide  as  well  as  by  the  others. 
Finally  they  divined  what  was  the  matter  with 
Brooks  and  gave  him  food,  some  one  having,  for- 
tunately, an  egg  or  two  in  reserve.  Mr.  Brooks 
having  gained  a  little  strength  from  food  and  rest, 
and  the  moon  having  risen  and  the  wind  being  in 
their  favor,  they  pressed  on,  and  at  last,  a  half-hour 
after  midnight,  the  exhausted  trampers  reached  their 
goal,  the  Tip-Top  House.  Tired  as  they  were  they 
had  to  sleep  on  the  office,  floor,  as  every  bed  was 
taken.  The  following  day  they  walked  down  the  car- 
riage road  in  the  morning  and  spent  the  remainder 
of  the  day  resting.  The  remaining  days  of  the  trip 
were  passed  at  North  Conway,  where  an  ascent  of 
Kearsarge  was  accomplished  on  foot,  and  some  other 
expeditions  were  made,  one  of  which  resulted  for 
Brooks  in  a  sprained  ankle,  which  accident  brought 
his  tramp  abruptly  to  a  close. 

Mr.  Brooks  evidently  enjoyed  the  trip,  for  we  find 
him  in  August  of  the  following  year  again  tramping 
in  the  Mountains,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Richards, 
Professor  C.  J.  Stills,  one  of  his  parishioners,  and  his 
brother  Frederick.^  This  tour,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  met  numerous  friends,  was  interspersed  with 
rowing,  occasional  resorts  to  horseback  riding,  and 
mountain-climbing.  One  of  the  tramping  excur- 
sions was  from  the  Glen  up  Mount  Washington, 

*  When  writing  to  his  brother  to  induce  him  to  take  this  trip,  Mr. 
Brooks  mentions  the  Reverend  Mr.  Strong  and  the  future  Bishop  of 
New  York,  Henry  C.  Potter,  as  planning  to  go. 

136 


FURTHER  DISCOVERIES 

after  which  the  travelers  returned  to  North  Con- 
way.* 

The  visitors  who  came  in  the  early  days  to  explore 
the  Mountains  or  to  see  their  scenic  features  stayed 
at  most  but  a  short  time,  far  from  long  enough  to 
form  a  strong  love  for  the  region  or  to  enjoy  its 
beauties  satisfactorily.  Probably  the  first  city  per- 
son to  prolong  his  summer  sojourns  or  to  make  fre- 
quent returns  was  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Bemis,  who  as  a 
boy  had  walked  from  Vermont  to  Boston,  where  he 
became  a  leading  dentist  and  amassed  a  fortune. 
From  1827  to  1840  he  spent  nearly  every  summer  in 
the  White  Hills,  and  in  the  latter  year  he  took  up 
his  permanent  residence  in  the  glen  in  Hart's  Loca- 
tion, at  the  base  of  Mount  Crawford,  in  which 
Abel  Crawford  had  lived  so  many  years.  There  Dr. 
Bemis  built  the  stone  cottage,  so  well  known  to 
travelers  up  and  down  the  Notch,  which  he  made 
his  home  until  his  death  in  May,  1881. 

Having  lent  large  amounts  of  money  to  Nathaniel 
T.  P.  Davis,  the  proprietor  of  the  Mount  Crawford 
House,  on  mortgage,  on  which  Crawford's  son-in- 
law  ultimately  had  to  default  his  payments,  Dr. 
Bemis  was  obliged  to  foreclose.  Thus  he  came  into 
possession  of  a  vast  tract  of  woodland,  extending  for 
miles  up  the  Notch.  This  great  estate  the  eccentric 
old  patriarch  bequeathed  to  his  long-time  superin- 

*  My  account  of  these  summer  excursions  of  Mr,  Brooks  is  drawn 
from  Dr.  Allen's  Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks.  The  details  of 
the  trip  over  the  peaks  are  quoted  by  the  biographer  from  the  Rev- 
erend Charles  A.  L.  Richards's  account  of  it  as  set  down  in  Remem- 
brances of  Phillips  Brooks  by  Vivo  of  his  Friends  [Richards  and  Strong]. 
(1893.) 

137 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

tendent,  George  W.  Morey.  Bemis  Station  on  the 
railroad,  Bemis  Brook,  Bemis  Pond,  and  Mount 
Bemis,  in  addition  to  the  cottage,  preserve  the  name 
and  memory  of  this  lover  of  Nature,  who  is  said  to 
have  named  more  of  the  mountains  of  this  region 
than  any  other  man. 


VI 

SOME    FOREIGN  VISITORS  AND    THEIR   ACCOUNTS 
OF  THEIR  TOURS  OF  THE  WHITE   MOUNTAINS 

The  next  Englishman  after  Josselyn  to  visit  the 
White  Hills  and  to  give  an  account  ^  of  his  journey 
was  Edward  Augustus  Kendall,  Esq.,  a  miscella- 
neous writer,  who,  during  the  course  of  his  travels  in 
this  country,  passed  through  this  region  by  wagon  in 
November,  1807.  From  Portland  he  proceeded  to 
Gorham,  where  he  first  saw  the  Mountains,  he  says, 
after  leaving  the  Kennebec.^  Thence  he  traveled  to 
Conway,  and  from  there  he  rode  over  the  new  turn- 
pike through  the  Notch  and  through  "Briton's 
Woods,"  Bethlehem,  "Lyttleton"  (where  he  passed 
the  night) ,  and  Bath  to  the  Connecticut  River.  Owing 
to  the  lateness  of  the  season  he  could  not  ascend  any 
of  the  Mountains,  the  summits  of  which  were  then 
covered  with  snow.  On  his  way  thither,  when  he 
reached  Hiram,  Maine,  on  the  17th,  he  had  experi- 
enced the  first  serious  fall  of  snow,  and  his  journey, 
being  undertaken  at  this  late  time  of  year,  was  neces- 
sarily a  hasty  one.   He  paused  long  enough  on  the 

^  In  his  Travels  through  the  Northern  Parts  of  the  United  States  in 
the  years  1807  and  1808,  in  three  volumes,  published  at  New  York  in 
1809.  The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  characterizes  it  as  "a 
somewhat  dull  account  of  his  wanderings."  His  discussion  of  the 
whiteness  of  the  Mountains  and  its  cause  has  been  summarized  in 
the  Introduction. 

*  He  got  his  first  view  of  them  from  some  high  land  in  Hallowell, 
Maine. 

139 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

way  to  eat  a  meal  at  "a  small  public  house,"  twenty 
miles  from  Conway  (evidently  the  Mount  Crawford 
House),  and  speaks  of  passing  another  house,  seven 
miles  farther  up  (the  Willey  House),  Captain  Rose- 
brook's  house,  and  the  latter's  son's  farm  in  "Brit- 
on's Woods."  The  greatest  height  to  which  he  as- 
cended, he  states,  was  the  "Beaver  Meadow" 
(where  the  Saco  rises),  the  origin  of  which  tract  he  is 
at  pains  to  explain. 

The  derivation  of  place-names  evidently  was  a 
subject  of  much  interest  to  him,  for  he  interrupts  his 
narrative  often  to  introduce  extended  discussions  of 
the  origin  of  some  of  those  he  meets  with  in  the 
course  of  his  travels.  Of  such  names  in  this  region, 
Ammonoosuc  and  Coos  receive  attention,  and  there 
is  a  lengthy  canvassing  of  the  signification  and 
proper  form  of  the  name  "Moose  Hillock." 

The  tricennial  period  1830  to  i860  was  memorable 
in  White  Mountain  travel  by  reason  of  the  visits  of 
a  number  of  foreign  tourists,  who  made  excursions 
to  this  region  a  part  of  their  American  tours  and  who 
have  included  in  the  record  of  their  travels  accounts 
of  the  incidents  and  experiences  of  their  trips 
through  the  Mountains.  Among  the  earliest  of  these 
foreign  visitors  was  a  London  barrister  of  royal  name 
and  eminently  fair  mind,  who  made  a  tour  of  North 
America  in  the  years  183 1  and  1832.  Henry  Tudor, 
Esq.,  had  been  an  extensive  traveler,  and  he  under- 
took the  transatlantic  voyage  for  the  purpose  of 
visiting  the  only  quarter  of  the  globe  that  he  had  not 
seen  and  also  for  the  sake  of  regaining  his  health, 
which  was  somewhat  impaired.  He  had  no  intention 

140 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

ofpublishing  an  account  of  his  travels  (which  he  had 
given  in  letters  to  various  friends),  and  would  never 
have  done  so,  he  declares,  had  he  not  been  dis- 
pleased with  the  tendency  of  some  tourists  to  Amer- 
ica "to  sully  the  fair  reputation,  and  to  depreciate 
whatever  is  excellent  in  the  rising  greatness  of  our 
transatlantic  brethren."  Particularly  he  reprobates, 
in  his  Preface,  the  "  Domestic  Manners  of  the  Amer- 
icans," pronouncing  Mrs.  Trollope's  observations  as 
"at  once  uncharitable"  and  as  "illogical  in  their  de- 
ductions." Moreover,  he  devotes  a  part  of  the  body 
of  his  book, "  Narrative  of  a  Tour  in  North  America  " 
(1834),  to  some  remarks  upon  that  lady's  strictures. 

Our  present  interest  in  Mr.  Tudor  and  his  travels, 
however,  lies  solely  in  the  fact  that  he  made,  in  the 
latter  part  of  October,  1831,  an  excursion  through 
the  White  Mountains,  going  by  wagon  from  Maine 
to  Conway,  riding  through  the  Notch  in  a  carriage, 
passing  Thomas  Crawfurd's  [sic]  hotel,  and  his 
brother's  hostelry  also,  and  crossing  by  way  of 
Littleton  to  the  Connecticut  River.  At  the  Notch 
House  he  felt,  he  says,  an  inclination  to  ascend  the 
Mountains  and  might  have  done  so  had  not  a  re- 
cent fall  of  snow  rendered  it  impracticable.  He  was 
filled  with  admiration  of  the  bold  and  romantic 
scenery,  especially  of  the  Notch,  and  was  much 
impressed  by  the  story  of  the  destruction  of  the 
household  of  "Mr.  Martin  Willey,"  which  he  nar- 
rates with  considerable  fullness. 

Two  other  foreigners  who  paid  a  visit  to  the  region 
about  this  time  were  Charles  Joseph  Latrobe,  an 
experienced  English  traveler  and  observer,  and  his 

141 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

friend,  the  Count  de  Pourtal^s,  a  young  Frenchman, 
who  together  made  an  extended  tour  of  North 
America  in  1832  and  1833.  On  their  voyage  to  New 
York  from  Havre,  they  had  as  fellow  passenger 
Washington  Irving,  who  was  returning  to  his  native 
land  after  seventeen  years'  absence.  With  him  they 
formed  an  intimate  acquaintance  on  shipboard, 
which  was  resumed  ashore  and  which  led  to  his  be- 
coming their  companion  in  a  number  of  their  excur- 
sions, the  association  being  continued  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1832.  Latrobe's 
entertaining  letters  to  a  younger  brother  narrating 
the  incidents  of  his  travels,  describing  the  places 
and  persons  seen,  and  commenting  on  the  govern- 
ment, politics,  manners,  customs,  institutions,  spirit, 
etc.,  of  the  country  in  general  or  of  particular  re- 
gions, were  published  in  two  volumes  in  1835,  under 
the  title  "The  Rambler  in  North  America,"  the 
work  being  dedicated  to  Irving. 

It  was  in  July,  1832,  that  the  travelers,  in  com- 
pany with  Irving,  who  had  appointed  Boston  as  a 
rendezvous  previous  to  a  visit  to  the  White  Moun- 
tains, and  whom  the  foreigners  found  at  the  Tremont 
Hotel  awaiting  their  arrival,  made  their  journey  to 
the  northern  wilderness.  They  approached  the  re- 
gion via  Concord,  Lake  Winnepesaukee,  and  Con- 
way, whence  they  passed  through  the  Notch  and 
descended  the  valley  of  the  Ammonoosuc.  The  as- 
cent of  Mount  Washington  was  achieved  by  the 
party,  but  "under  disadvantageous  circumstances." 
"Upon  gaining  the  summit,"  says  Latrobe,  "after 
some  hours*  toil  and  much  expectation,  we  were 

142 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

enveloped  in  heavy  mist,  which  set  our  patience  at 
defiance,  and  sent  us  cold  and  wet  on  our  downward 
route." 

Mr.  Latrobe,  on  the  preceding  day,  ascended 
alone,  "under  better  auspices,"  the  summit  "third 
in  rank,"  and  so  gained  a  view  which  enabled  him  to 
give  a  brief  description  of  the  scenery  for  the  benefit 
of  the  recipient  of  his  letters.  Irving  being  obliged  to 
return  to  New  York  for  a  few  days,  Pourtal^s  and 
Latrobe  continued  on  to  Lancaster  without  him  and 
thence  crossed  Vermont  and  proceeded  to  Saratoga 
Springs,  where  they  kept  their  appointment  to  meet 
Irving  again. 

Of  what  impression  the  White  Mountains  made 
upon  the  great  writer  who  has  immortalized  the 
Hudson  and  the  Catskills  in  literature,  we  have  no 
record.  Writing  to  his  brother  Peter,  he  declares  the 
central  New  Hampshire  country  "beautiful  beyond 
expectation"  and  his  course  down  the  Connecticut 
River  to  Springfield  as  a  passing  "through  a  con- 
tinued succession  of  enchanting  scenes";  but  he 
writes  nothing  of  the  White  Mountains  further  than 
the  brief  statement,  "We  kept  together  through  the 
mountains."  Possibly  the  unpleasant  experience 
encountered  on  the  Mount  Washington  trip  is  re- 
sponsible for  his  silence  as  to  this  region. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  (1832)  as  that  of 
the  visit  of  Latrobe  and  his  companions,  another 
English  traveler,  E.  T.  Coke,  a  lieutenant  of  the 
Forty-fifth  Regiment,  in  the  course  of  a  compre- 
hensive tour  of  the  United  States  and  the  British 
provinces,  made  a  trip  to  the  Mountains,  of  which 

143 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

he  has  given  a  lively  account  in  the  second  volume 
of  his  "A  Subaltern's  Furlough,"  published  in  1833. 

A  fatiguing  and  rough  coach  journey  of  eighteen 
hours  took  him  from  Concord  to  Conway  on  the  i8th 
of  October.  Such  was  the  soldier's  ambition  that  the 
next  morning  he  started  at  a  quarter  to  three  to 
go  through  the  Notch.  The  traveler  (who  was  of 
an  artistic  bent  and  wished  to  do  some  sketching), 
on  the  arrival  of  the  coach  at  the  southern  entrance 
to  the  Notch,  alighted  from  it,  and,  ordering  his 
baggage  to  be  left  at  the  inn  beyond  the  pass,  sat 
down  to  admire  the  "awful,  grand  and  sublime 
spectacle,  which  the  Notch  presents."  The  chance 
rolling  of  a  stone  down  the  mountain-side  and  the 
starting-up  of  a  partridge  brought  to  his  mind  the 
thought  of  an  avalanche  and  caused  him  to  hasten 
his  sketching  work  and  leave  the  valley.  He  found 
his  baggage  at  Ethan  Crawford's,  where  he  arrived 
after  a  toilsome  journey  and  where  he  stayed  several 
days,  entertained,  he  notes,  by  his  host's  hunting 
stories.  It  was  too  windy  to  climb  Washington  on 
the  2 1st,  but  on  the  226.,  he  started  with  a  guide  at 
4.30  A.M.  and  reached  the  summit  at  8.15,  having 
been  one  and  three  quarters  hours  in  covering  the 
three  miles  from  the  base.  Of  the  view,  which  he 
found  "most  extensive,"  he  remarks,  "It  did  not,  I 
must  confess,  altogether  answer  my  expectations, 
nor,  to  my  taste,  was  it  equal  to  that  from  Mount 
Holyoke,  where  all  was  richness  and  life." 

After  his  descent,  he  proceeded  to  Bethlehem  and 
thence  to  Littleton,  where  he  arrived  in  the  evening. 
The  next  day  (the  23d)  being  cold  and  rainy,  he 

144 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

remained  at  Littleton,  but  on  the  24th  he  rode  out 
to  Franconia,  and,  passing  through  the  Franconia 
Notch,  crossed  over  to  the  Connecticut  River  and 
Vermont.  On  his  way  he  visited  the  "Profile  of  the 
Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,"  about  which  he  remarks, 
"No  art  could  improve  the  effect,  nor  could  any 
attempt  be  made  to  assist  it;  for,  the  profile  being 
seen  perfect  only  from  one  point,  the  slightest  devia- 
tion from  that  spot  throws  all  into  a  confused  mass." 

In  the  autumn  of  1835,  the  noted  English  writer, 
Harriet  Martineau,  who  was  spending  two  years  of 
travel  in  the  United  States,  visited  the  White  Moun- 
tains.^ She  left  Boston  on  the  i6th  of  September  in 
company  with  three  friends,  going  by  way  of  Lake 
Winnepesaukee,  which  the  party  crossed  on  a  steam- 
boat and  in  the  neighborhood  of  which  they  paused 
long  enough  to  make  an  ascent  of  "Red  Mountain" 
(Red  Hill).  This  done,  they  proceeded  to  Conway, 
whence  they  went  in  a  private  conveyance  through 
the  Crawford  Notch,  stops  being  made  at  Pen- 
dexter's  and  the  elder  Crawford's,  and  Ethan  Allen 
Crawford's  hospitable  dwelling  being  reached  at 
nightfall. 

Their  purpose  of  ascending  Mount  Washington 
the  next  day  was  frustrated  by  a  tempest  of  wind 
and  snow  on  that  peak,  but  the  day  was  spent  "de- 
lightfully" in  climbing  Mount  Deception,  tracing 

^  She  devotes  a  section  of  volume  ii  of  her  Retrospect  of  Western 
Travel  (published  in  1838),  to  a  description  of  the  region  and  a  narra- 
tion of  the  incidents  of  her  journey.  The  earlier  part  of  the  trip  is 
related  in  her  Society  in  America.  This  is  followed  by  a  brief  account 
of  the  Willey  disaster,  by  a  pleasant  characterization  of  Ethan  Allen 
Crawford  and  of  his  hospitality,  and  by  a  description  of  the  host's 
ways  of  entertaining  and  amusing  his  guests. 

145 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  course  of  the  Ammonoosuc,  and  watching  the 
storms.  In  the  late  afternoon,  the  tourists  set  out 
in  a  wagon  for  Littleton,  passing  Bethlehem  ("con- 
sisting, as  far  as  we  could  see,  of  one  house  and  two 
barns"),  and  reaching  about  six  o'clock  their  desti- 
nation, where  they  were  most  comfortably  enter- 
tained "at  Gibb's  house."  The  following  day  was 
devoted  to  an  excursion  to  the  Franconia  Notch. 
Unfortunately,  the  weather  was  showery  and  cloudy, 
and  soon  after  their  arrival  they  were  glad  to  take 
refuge  from  one  pelting  downpour  in  the  Lafayette 
House,  then  just  erected.  Although,  as  she  puts  it, 
"we  .  .  .  made  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  prin- 
cipal features  of  the  pass,"  she  makes  no  mention  of 
the  Profile,  whose  existence  was  apparently  unknown 
to  her  and  which  was  doubtless  on  that  day  hidden 
by  clouds  or  mist.  After  dinner,  however,  when 
they  had  duly  given  an  account  of  themselves  in 
the  host's  new  album,  they  started,  in  defiance  of 
the  weather,  to  see  the  Flume,  which  she  calls  the 
Whirlpool  and  characterizes  as  "the  grand  object 
of  the  pass."  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  rained  hard 
during  their  stay  of  half  an  hour  there,  and  although 
they  returned  to  Littleton  in  pitch  darkness  and 
arrived  there  wet  to  the  skin,  the  experience  did  not 
discourage  the  writer  from  concluding  her  account 
with  the  opinion  that  the  Franconia  Defile  is  "the 
noblest  mountain  pass  I  saw  in  the  United  States." 
The  most  famous  of  foreign  scientists  to  explore 
the  Mountains  was  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  F.R.S.,  the 
eminent  geologist.  Early  in  his  second  visit  to  the 
United  States,  in  1845,  he  set  out,  accompanied  by 

146 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

his  wife,  on  an  excursion  thither  from  Boston,  the 
first  part  of  their  itinerary  being  along  the  seacoast  to 
Portland.  Their  course  from  there  was  to  Conway, 
then  through  the  Crawford  Notch  to  Fabyan's, 
where  they  remained  several  days,  ascending  Mount 
Washington  on  horseback  on  October  7.  Leaving 
Fabyan's,  they  journeyed  to  Bethlehem  and  the 
Franconia  Notch,  and  thence  traveled  by  stage  to 
Plymouth,  whence  they  returned  via  Concord  to 
Boston. 

Geological  and  botanical  matters  were  naturally 
uppermost  in  Sir  Charles's  mind  during  the  tour,  but 
he  sets  down  many  interesting  observations  and  re- 
marks concerning  things  political,  social,  and  reli- 
gious. He  records  the  names  of  many  botanical 
specimens  found,  and  he  was  particularly  interested 
in  the  alpine  species  of  plants  inhabiting  Mount 
Washington,  the  explanation  of  whose  presence  there 
he  discusses  briefly.  At  Fabyan's  he  found  Mr. 
Oakes  ("one  of  the  ablest  botanists  in  America"), 
who  was  his  companion  in  walks  about  there  and 
who  was  a  member  of  the  party  of  nine  which  made 
the  ascent  of  the  chief  peak. 

The  geological  matter  that  especially  engaged  the 
great  scientist's  attention  was  that  of  the  effects  of 
slides  on  the  rocks  over  which  they  had  passed,  his 
object  being  to  determine  whether  any  of  the  grooves 
and  scratches  on  them  are  caused  by  avalanches.  As 
a  result  of  his  investigations  at  the  scene  of  the 
Willey  Slide,  where  he  clambered  up  four  hundred 
feet  above  the  river  under  the  guidance  of  the  elder 
Crawford,  and  at  other  places,  he  became  convinced 

147 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

that  the  long  and  straight  furrows  could  not  be  due 
to  this  cause. 

Although  he  stayed  a  couple  of  days  or  so  at  the 
Franconia  Notch  and  went  from  there  to  Plymouth 
by  stage,  he  does  not  speak  of  the  Profile  or  of  the 
Flume.  Lack  of  time  to  make  the  side  trip  to  the 
latter  when  on  his  way  through  the  Notch  may  have 
been  the  reason  for  his  silence  about  it.  Perhaps, 
also,  such  curiosities  as  these  did  not  appeal  to  his 
scientific  mind. 

Another  foreigner  of  note  who  included  a  tour  to 
the  White  Mountains  in  her  course  of  travel  in 
America  was  the  Swedish  novelist,  Fredrika  Bremer, 
who  spent  two  years  in  this  country.  In  August, 
1 85 1,  the  month  preceding  her  departure,  she  paid 
a  visit  of  several  days  to  the  Mountains,  of  which 
trip  she  has  left  an  entertaining  account,^  with  lively 
comments  on  some  of  the  incidents  of  the  journey 
and  on  some  of  the  practices  of  fellow  tourists,  and 
especially  with  much  description  of  the  scenery, 
which  impressed  her  greatly.  That  of  the  Franconia 
Notch  reminded  her  of  "the  glorious  river  valleys  of 
Dalecarlia  or  Norsland"  in  her  native  land,  but  was 
pronounced  by  her  "more  picturesque,  more  playful 
and  fantastic,"  and  declared  to  have  "more  cheerful 
diversity"  and  an  "affluence  of  wood"  and  "beauti- 
ful foliage"  that  are  "extraordinary."  She  declined 
to  attempt  the  ascent  of  Mount  Washington  because 
of  the  difficulty  of  the  expedition  and  because  of  the 

*  See  volume  il  of  her  The  Homes  of  the  New  World:  Impressions 
of  America.  Translated  by  Mary  Howitt,  in  two  volumes  (1853). 
The  work  is  a  transcription  of  her  letters  to  her  sister  at  home. 

148 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

nature  of  the  view,  visited  the  Flume,  which  inter- 
ested her  greatly,  and  saw  the  Profile,^  which  struck 
her  very  differently  from  most  people.  So  singular  is 
her  impression  of  it  that  her  characterization  of  it 
may  well  be  given  here  for  its  interest. 

The  peculiarity  of  these  so-called  White  Mountains  is 
[she  says]  the  many  gigantic  human  profiles  which,  in 
many  places,  look  out  from  the  mountains  with  a  precision 
and  perfect  regularity  of  outline  which  is  quite  astonish- 
ing. They  have  very  much  amused  me,  and  I  have 
sketched  several  of  them  in  my  rambles.  We  have  our 
quarters  here  ^  very  close  to  one  of  these  countenances, 
which  has  long  been  known  under  the  name  of  "the  Old 
Man  of  the  Mountain."  It  has  not  any  nobility  in  its 
features,  but  resembles  a  very  old  man  in  a  bad  humor, 
and  with  a  nightcap  on  his  head,  who  is  looking  out  from 
the  mountain  half  inquisitive.  Far  below  the  old  giant's 
face  is  an  enchanting  little  lake,  resembling  a  bright  oval 
toilet-glass,  inclosed  in  a  verdant  frame  of  leafage.  The 
Old  Man  of  the  Mountain  looks  out  gloomily  over  this 
quiet  lake,  and  the  clouds  float  far  below  his  chin. 

In  this  connection  it  may  also  be  of  interest  to 
know  that,  while  she  was  visiting  in  Boston,  more 
than  a  year  before,  Charles  Sumner  read  to  her  one 
day  Hawthorne's  story  of  "The  Great  Stone  Face," 
which  "poem  in  prose,"  as  she  characterizes  it,  gave 
her  so  much  pleasure  that  she  wrote  a  summary  of  it 
as  a  part  of  her  letter  sent  at  that  time. 

A  mid-century  visitor  to  America  of  an  unusual 
kind  and  of  some  distinction  was  the  Honorable 

*  She  also  mentions  "Willey's  House"  and  briefly  narrates  the 
story  of  the  disaster  and  that  of  the  fate  of  Nancy,  as  connected  with 
a  "place"  called  "Nancy  Bridge." 

*  She  stayed  at  the  Lafayette  House. 

149 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Amelia  Matilda  Murray,  a  maid  of  honor  to  Queen 
Victoria.  A  brilliant  woman  of  high  social  position 
(her  mother  was  a  lady  in  waiting  upon  two  prin- 
cesses and  as  a  girl  Amelia  was  much  at  court), 
she  did  not  allow  court  life  to  absorb  by  any  means 
her  entire  attention,  but  found  time  and  opportunity 
to  become  an  excellent  botanist  and  artist  and  also 
to  interest  herself  in  the  education  of  destitute  and 
delinquent  children. 

In  July,  1854,  she  started  on  a  tour  of  the  United 
States,  Cuba,  and  Canada,  not  returning  home  until 
October,  1855.  In  the  latter  part  of  August  of  the 
first  year  a  visit  of  about  ten  days  to  the  White 
Mountains  was  made,  of  which  she  has  left  a  viva- 
cious account  in  her  "Letters  from  the  United 
States,  Cuba,  and  Canada,"  published  in  1856.^ 

Botany  and  sketching  were  naturally  her  special 
interests  on  her  American  tour.  Immediately  after 
her  arrival  she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Asa  Gray, 
who,  she  writes  on  August  4,  "has  proposed  botaniz- 
ing over  part  of  this  country  with  me."  On  the 
excursion  with  which  we  are  concerned,  he  accom- 
panied her  as  far  as  Alton  Bay,  whence  he  returned 
to  Boston.  The  Mountains  were  approached  in  the 
usual  way  at  that  day,  that  is,  via  Center  Harbor 
and  Conway.  The  Honorable  Miss  Murray  did  not 
particularly  enjoy  mountain-climbing,  and  so  re- 

*  An  interesting  sidelight  on  her  quality  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that 
when  she  was  reminded,  on  proposing  to  print  an  account  of  her 
travels,  that  court  officials  were  not  allowed  to  publish  anything 
savoring  of  politics,  she  resigned  her  post  rather  than  suppress  her 
opinions,  —  she  had  returned  a  zealous  advocate  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  She  prepared,  but  did  not  publish,  a  series  of  sketches  to 
accompany  her  book.   {Dictionary  of  National  Biography.) 

150 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

fused  to  ascend  Red  Hill  *  with  her  party.  The  jour- 
ney to  Conway,  "a  drive  hot  and  dusty  but  very 
beautiful,"  was  made  in  "a  kind  of  char-^-banc, 
hired  for  the  purpose."  From  Conway  she  went  to 
the  Crauford  [sic]  House  on  Sunday  morning, 
August  20,  the  start  being  made  at  6  a.m.  "Such  a 
beautiful  drive!"  she  exclaims.  At  her  destination 
she  found  acquaintances  and  was  induced  to  accom- 
pany them  on  a  drive,  after  six  horses,  to  the  summit 
of  Mount  Willard.  "Having  once  embarked  in  the 
undertaking,  I  was  ashamed  to  insist  upon  being  let 
off;  but  the  ascent  was  really  a  tremendous  one  for 
any  vehicle  whatever;  and  how  we  ever  got  safely 
up  and  down  again  is  a  marvel  to  me,"  she  writes. 
The  temptation  to  join  a  party  in  ascending  Mount 
Washington  on  horseback  the  next  day  she  resisted, 
doubtless  without  much  effort.  She  then  continued 
her  tour,  going  to  the  Profile  House  on  the  22d,  and 
on  the  morning  of  the  following  day  driving  to  the 
Flume  House.  In  connection  with  the  Profile  and 
Profile  Lake  she  records:  "A  legend  is  attached  to 
the  latter,  which  says,  that  all  who  rise  early  may 
see  the  old  man  of  the  mountain  take  his  bath  in 
the  lake."  She  found  the  scenery  round  the  Flume 
House  so  fine  that  she  removed  there  on  the  24th 
and  stayed  until  the  morning  of  the  29th.  On  the 
morning  of  her  last  full  day  at  this  place,  with  an 
American  acquaintance  whom  she  found  staying 
there,  she  climbed  to  the  top  of  "Pemmewhasset," 

^  This  long  ridge,  a  number  of  times  mentioned  in  the  text,  is 
situated  north  of  Lake  Winnepesaukee  in  Moultonborough.  It  com- 
mands a  wonderful  view,  whose  praises  have  been  celebrated  by 
many  writers. 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

from  which,  she  says,  "there  is  a  charming  view  up 
and  down  the  valley  of  the  Saca  [sic] . ' '  Some  one  had 
evidently  misinformed  her  as  to  the  geography  of  the 
valley  she  was  in,  for,  in  recording  her  ride  from  the 
Flume  House  to  Wells  River,  she  writes,  "The  road 
,  .  .  runs  nearly  the  whole  way  by  the  River  Saco, 
the  same  we  passed  at  Conway." 

She  has  much  to  say  in  praise  of  the  beauty  of  the 
mountain  country,  which  appealed  strongly  to  her 
artistic  sensibilities.  On  the  social  side,  the  comfort 
of  the  hotels  and  the  cordiality,  frankness,  and 
kindness  of  the  people  she  met  especially  struck 
this  English  traveler,  who  found  the  hotel  life 
"  like  the  freedom  of  a  very  large  country-house  in 
England." 

The  English  novelist,  Anthony  Trollope,  he  of  the 
"nulla  dies  sine  linea"  method  of  doing  literary 
work,  is  another  famotts  foreigner  who  visited  the 
White  Mountains  and  gave  an  account  of  his  excur- 
sion and  recorded  his  impressions  of  the  region  in  a 
book.  Early  in  the  course  of  his  travels  in  North 
America,  one  result  of  which  was  an  entertaining 
and  fair-minded  volume  on  the  subject,  he  made 
a  brief  circuit  tour  of  the  Mountains.  It  was  in 
September,  1861,  that,  on  his  way  to  Canada,  he 
paused  long  enough  to  make  the  trip.  His  way  of 
approach  was  by  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway  from 
Portland  to  Gorham,  and  thence  by  wagon  to  the 
Glen  House.  From  this  starting-point  he  made  an 
ascent  of  Mount  Washington  on  a  pony,  but,  as  he 
says  of  this  expedition,"  I  did  not  gain  much  myself 
by  my  labour,"  he  evidently  experienced  the  rather 

152 


SOME  FOREIGN  VISITORS 

common  lot  of  being  deprived  of  any  view  by  the 
presence  of  clouds.  The  following  night  was  passed 
at  Jackson,  and  the  next  day  was  devoted  to  a  wagon 
journey  to  the  Crawford  House  and  a  walk  up  Mount 
Willard.  After  spending  the  night  at  this  hostelry, 
he  completed  his  Mountain  excursion  by  a  ride  over 
Cherry  Mountain  and  thence  back  to  Gorham. 

He  expresses  his  surprise  in  finding  a  district  in 
New  England  with  such  fine  scenery,  much  of  which, 
he  declares,  "is  superior  to  the  famed  and  classic 
lands  of  Europe,"  and  further  in  finding  it  so  easily 
accessible  and  abundantly  supplied  with  large  hotels. 
The  view  from  Mount  Willard  down  the  Notch  he 
pronounces  unequaled  on  the  Rhine.  The  brilliancy 
of  the  autumn  foliage,  unapproached  in  any  other 
land,  he  confesses  to  be  beyond  his  powers  of  descrip- 
tion. 


VII 

THE  EARLY  HOTELS  AND  THE   BEGINNINGS  OF 
THE   REGION  AS  A  SUMMER  RESORT 

In  an  earlier  chapter  have  been  chronicled  the  first 
comings  to  the  Mountains  of  inhabitants  of  the  older 
and  more  established  and  populous  settlements  on 
the  seacoast,  who  came  not  to  stay  permanently,  but 
to  pass  through  the  region  or  to  tarry  a  short  time  in 
it  for  the  purpose  of  pleasure  travel,  or  of  explora- 
tion. The  more  noteworthy  of  such  early  visitors 
were,  it  will  be  recalled,  men  of  learning,  such  as 
President  Dwight  and  Drs.  Belknap  and  Cutler,  who 
made  the  journey,  long  and  arduous  as  it  was  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  a  mixed 
motive,  in  which  the  chief  element  was  the  desire 
of  adding  to  their  stock  of  information.  They  had 
heard  of  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  scenery  of 
the  Mountain  district,  and  wished  to  see  it  for  them- 
selves, so  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  viewing 
the  landscape  was  an  element  in  their  reason  for  com- 
ing, as  was  also  the  desire  for  recreation;  but  their 
chief  concern  was  ever  knowledge  of  the  natural 
phenomena  and  physical  conditions  of  the  region  and 
of  the  effects  of  man's  occupation  of  a  wilderness  and 
first  attempts  at  subduing  it. 

These  explorers  or  travelers,  whose  main  interests 
were,  as  has  been  said,  scientific,  or  whose  minds,  at 
any  rate,  were  inquiring,  were  followed  early  in  the 

154 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

nineteenth  century  by  a  slowly  increasing  number  of 
a  class  whose  purpose  in  coming  was  entirely  one  of 
pleasure  and  recreation,  the  precursors  of  the  multi- 
tude of  summer  tourists  and  visitors  of  recent  days. 
In  the  preceding  two  chapters  have  been  summa- 
rized the  incidents  of  the  tours  of  the  more  noted  of 
those  persons,  American  and  foreign,  who  came  in 
the  early  days  to  view  the  scenic  beauties  and  won- 
ders of  the  region,  their  experiences,  and  the  com- 
ments they  chose  to  make  on  things  seen. 

This  growing  desire  on  the  part  of  travelers  and 
pleasure  seekers,  to  make  a  trip  to  the  highlands  of 
the  north  country,  stimulated  the  residents  and  the 
local  authorities  to  endeavor  to  meet  the  demand 
thus  created  and  to  turn  it  to  pecuniary  advantage, 
by  affording  facilities  for  making  the  journey  and 
more  and  better  accommodations  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  passers- through  or  sojourners.  This  dis- 
position manifested  itself  in  the  building  of  better 
roads,  the  construction  of  bridle  paths  and  trails,  the 
establishment  of  stage-lines  on  certain  main-traveled 
routes,  and  the  erection  of  comfortable  inns.  Fore- 
most among  the  residents  of  the  region  in  this  pio- 
neer work  were  the  members  of  the  Crawford  family. 
The  improvements  made  by  them  and  others  fos- 
tered in  turn  the  desire  of  making  the  excursion,  and 
in  consequence  of  this  reciprocal  action,  and  also 
in  some  measure  because  of  the  wider  extension  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  such  grand  and 
beautiful  scenery  so  comparatively  near  at  hand,  the 
number  of  travelers,  as  has  been  indicated,  gradually 
increased.    It  remained  for  the  coming  of  the  rail- 

155 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

roads,  the  growth  of  the  country  in  population  and 
wealth,  and  the  rise  and  development  of  the  practice 
of  spending  the  summer  or  a  part  of  it  in  the  country, 
and  of  the  closely  related  custom  of  taking  summer 
vacations,  all  circumstances  occurring  in  or  char- 
acteristic of  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  make  of  the  White  Mountain  district  the  great 
summer  recreation  ground  and  tourist  resort  it  has 
become. 

In  the  earlier  period  of  this  growth  of  the  region 
as  a  resort,  however,  the  visitors  were  tourists  only, 
who  devoted  but  a  few  days  at  most  to  seeing  the 
Mountains.  Many  of  them  paused  long  enough,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  make,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Crawfords  or  of  others,  an  ascent  of  the  chief  peak, 
but  that  done  and  the  notches  visited  or  traversed, 
they  passed  on,  in  most  cases  never  to  return.  It  was 
not  until  late  in  the  thirties  that  people  came  to  pass 
the  entire  season  or  at  least  to  make  stays  of  any 
length  at  one  place,  and  began  to  make  annual  re- 
turns to  some  village  or  hamlet,  such,  for  instance,  as 
Conway  Corner  or  North  Conway.  I  have  spoken 
in  another  place  of  the  pioneer  in  this  custom.  Dr. 
Bemis,  of  Hart's  Location. 

The  first  inns  in  the  region,  therefore,  were  opened 
to  provide  entertainment  for  transient  guests,  which 
included  the  tourists  and  the  many  persons  engaged 
in  the  commercial  traffic  that  was  carried  on  over 
certain  main  routes  of  travel,  especially  that  through 
the  Crawford  Notch,  which  formed  the  only  direct 
connection  between  the  seacoast  and  the  upper 
Connecticut  Valley.  These  hostelries  were,  as  Haw- 

156 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

thorne  expresses  it,  "at  once  the  pleasure-house  of 
fashionable  tourists  and  the  homely  inn  of  country 
travelers,"  and  their  guests  were  often  of  the  mot- 
ley character  of  a  group  the  novelist  describes,  in 
the  sketch  ^  from  which  this  quotation  is  taken,  as 
spending  a  night  at  Ethan  Crawford's  when  he  was 
once  a  guest  there. 

The  building  or  opening  of  the  earliest  of  these 
houses  of  entertainment  has  been  already  recorded. 
Let  the  facts  be  again  set  down  briefly  for  the  sake 
of  bringing  the  information  into  juxtaposition  with 
other  circumstances  of  the  same  kind. 

The  first  house  of  entertainment  in  the  region  was 
built,  it  will  be  recalled,  by  Captain  Eleazar  Rose- 
brook  in  1803  on  the  site  of  the  present  Fabyan 
House.  This  house  was  burned  in  1 818,  shortly  after 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford  received  it  from  his  grand- 
father, and  was  immediately  succeeded  by  a  small 
house,  which  was  moved  to  the  site.  In  1824  and 
1825,  Mr.  Crawford  added  a  good-sized  building  to 
this  latter  structure  to  accommodate  the  increasing 
number  of  summer  travelers.  Another  addition  was 
erected  in  1832  and  1833. 

Meantime,  as  travel  through  the  region  and  es- 
pecially over  the  new  turnpike  through  the  Notch 
increased,  hotels  and  taverns  of  a  simple  type  were 
opened  along  the  main  routes.  The  rude  habitation 
known  as  the  "Willey  House"  was  built,  as  has 
been  already  mentioned,  probably  in  the  last  decade 

^  "Our  Evening- Party  among  the  Mountains,"  one  of  the 
"Sketches  from  Memory,"  in  Mosses  from^  an  Old  Manse.  Hawthorne, 
as  has  been  narrated,  stopped  at  Crawford's  in  the  autumn  of  1832. 

157 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  the  eighteenth  century,  and,  not  long  after  the 
opening  of  Rosebrook's  hotel,  was  opened  as  a  pub- 
lic house  by  one  Henry  Hill.  It  was  kept  by  him 
and  others  for  several  years  and  was  at  length  aban- 
doned. Farther  south,  on  Hart's  Location,  Rose- 
brook's  son-in-law,  Abel  Crawford,  began  to  entertain 
travelers  at  his  home,  which  came  to  be  known  as  the 
"Mount  Crawford  House,"  and  which  was  kept 
for  years  by  his  son-in-law,  Nathaniel  T.  P.  Davis. 
Here  Webster,  Everett,  Rufus  Choate,  and  Presi- 
dent Pierce  were  guests  when  visiting  the  region  on 
fishing  trips.  The  old  house  was  torn  down  some 
years  since,  ^  its  last  openings  to  the  public  having 
been  in  1872  and  1876. 

The  early  inn  at  Upper  Bartlett  was  kept  for  years 
by  "Judge"  Obed  Hall,  who  had  been  a  member  of 
Congress.  Grenville  Mellen  tells  of  stopping  there 
in  18 19  and  characterizes  his  host  as  "the  wonder 
and  curiosity  of  his  region,"  noting  his  picturesque 
character  and  rugged,  honest  hospitality  and  his 
abilities  as  a  talker  and  story-teller. 

The  Honorable  John  Pendexter,  who  built  the 
hotel,  afterwards  enlarged  and  improved  and  now 
known  as  the  "Pendexter  Mansion,"  in  Intervale, 
came  to  the  wilderness  from  Portsmouth  ^  in  the 
winter  of  1772  or  1773,  living  at  first  in  a  log  cabin 
and  later  in  a  frame  house  on  the  lowland.  Another 
early  house  in  this  locality  was   Meserve's  East 

*  In  1900.  A  cottage,  still  standing  at  the  railroad  station,  was 
built  of  the  sound  timber. 

*  The  eighty  miles  were  made  by  the  pioneer  on  foot,  his  wife, 
Martha,  riding  on  an  old  horse,  with  a  feather  bed  for  a  saddle,  and 
he  dragging  the  household  furniture  on  a  hand  sled. 

158 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

Branch  House  at  Lower  Bartlett,  near  the  location 
of  the  Pitman  Hall  of  to-day. 

The  great  hotel  locality  of  this  region  was,  how- 
ever^ the  town  of  Conway.  Here,  as  the  chief  stop- 
ping-place at  the  east  entrance  to  the  Mountains,  a 
number  of  taverns  or  inns  were  early  established. 
About  1 8 12,  the  Washington  House,  later  the  Cliff 
House,  threw  open  its  doors  for  the  entertainment  of 
strangers  in  North  Conway,  destined  to  become  the 
principal  tourist  center  of  the  town  and  the  leading 
summer  resort  of  the  eastern  side  of  the  region. 
Daniel  Eastman  was  its  builder  and  proprietor.  By 
1825,  when  summer  visitors  began  to  come,  the 
taverns  in  the  town,  besides  Eastman's  were,  accord- 
ing to  Mrs.  Mason,  Thomas  Abbott's  Pequawket 
House  at  Conway  (formerly  known  as  Conway 
Corner) ;  Benjamin  Osgood's  house  at  Black  Cat,  in 
the  lower  end  of  the  town;  the  McMillan  House 
at  North  Conway,  established  by  Colonel  Andrew 
McMillan,  a  native  of  Ireland,  who  came  there  from 
Concord  about  1764;  and  Samuel  W.  Thompson's 
small  tavern  in  North  Conway,  situated  where  now 
stands  the  Kearsarge.  Chatauque,^  or  Conway  Cor- 
ner, became,  as  travel  increased,  the  starting-point 
for  stage-lines  to  distant  points,  such  as  Concord, 
Dover,  Littleton,  and  Portland.  In  these  days  most 
of  the  tourists  came  by  coach  from  Center  Harbor, 
but  numbers,  proportionately  much  greater  than  in 

^  This  name  was  given  to  the  village,  according  to  Mrs.  M.  E. 
Eastman,  by  an  old  resident,  who,  on  returning  to  his  native  town 
after  having  spent  a  number  of  years  near  Chautauqua,  New  York, 
remarked  on  the  resemblance  of  the  right-angled  crossroads  to  the 
"four  corners"  in  the  New  York  State  village. 

159 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

later  days  until  the  advent  of  the  automobile,  trav- 
eled by  private  conveyance.  Mails  in  the  pre-stage 
days  were  infrequent.  In  1775,  a  messenger  brought 
"the  post  monthly";  in  1781,  the  Government  em- 
ployed a  rider  to  bring  the  mail  fortnightly.  From 
1825  to  1829,  Samuel  W.  Thompson  carried  it  on 
horseback  from  Conway  to  Littleton  once  a  week/ 
and  after  that  a  two-horse  wagon  was  driven  over 
the  route  until  the  stage-line  was  established. 

Noted  visitors  to  North  Conway  during  its  in- 
fancy as  a  summer  resort  were  many,  the  town  being, 
as  has  been  indicated,  the  chief  gateway  to  the 
Mountains.  Some  of  them  who  wrote  about  their 
tours  are  named  in  the  preceding  chapters. 

The  artists,  who  early  made  the  village  a  sort  of 
American  Barbizon,  and  who  did  so  much  to  extend 
the  locality's  fame,  will  be  dealt  with  in  another 
chapter. 

An  important  event  in  the  hotel  history  of  North 
Conway  was  the  erection,  in  1861,  of  the  structure 
which  constitutes  the  south  wing  of  the  present 
Kearsarge  House.  The  enterprising  Samuel  W. 
Thompson,  owner  of  the  older  hotel  of  the  same 
name,  2  was  the  builder  of  the  new  house  of  enter- 

*  Mr.  Crawford  records  that,  in  1828,  he  was  transporting  the  mail 
from  Conway  to  Littleton  twice  a  week,  and  that  after  the  heavy  rain 
of  the  2d  day  of  September,  —  a  downpour  "which  was  as  great  as 
the  one  we  had  two  years  before"  and  which  carried  away  many  of 
the  newly  rebuilt  bridges  and  destroyed  much  of  the  road,  —  it  was 
impossible  to  go  with  a  horse.  "We  carried  it,"  he  says,  "regularly 
on  our  backs,  without  losing  more  than  one  single  trip." 

*  The  old  tavern  was  removed  to  a  side  street  and  made  over  into 
a  dwelling-house.  It  is  now  used  as  the  Episcopal  rectory.  I  owe  this 
information  to  Mr.  Thompson's  daughter,  Mrs.  L.  J.  Ricker,  of 
Kearsarge  Hall. 

160 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

tainment  and  for  many  years  its  proprietor.  In  1872 
he  completed  the  present  hotel. 

At  Bethlehem  the  first  tavern-keeper's  license  was 
granted  on  December  8,  1800,  by  Selectmen  Moses 
Eastman  and  Amos  Wheeler  to  their  colleague, 
Captain  Lot  Woodbury.  The  need  for  such  a  house 
of  entertainment  grew  out  of  the  increasing  impor- 
tance of  the  new  town  as  a  station  of  commerce  be- 
tween Portland  and  northern  New  Hampshire.  This 
public  house  of  Squire  Woodbury  stood  at  the  west 
end  of  the  street,  near  where  the  Alpine  House  of  to- 
day is  situated,  and  was  a  famous  tavern  for  many 
a  year.  Other  early  taverns  were  those  kept  by 
Thomas  Jefferson  Spooner,  Joseph  Plummer,  John 
G.  Sinclair,  and  the  Turners,  whose  signboard  bears 
the  date  of  1789.  Gradually  Bethlehem  declined  as  a 
commercial  place  and  became  a  summer  resort  only, 
a  hotel  being  built  before  long  solely  for  the  purpose 
of  entertaining  summer  visitors,  now  almost  the  only 
source  of  revenue  to  the  town  and  certainly  the  only 
one  for  Bethlehem  Street. 

The  building  of  the  new  Notch  House  on  the 
little  plateau  at  the  northern  entrance  (the  Gate)  of 
the  Crawford  Notch  has  been  barely  mentioned  in 
a  preceding  chapter.  A  few  details  may  be  added 
here.  The  hotel  owed  its  origin  to  the  thought  and 
enterprise  of  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  then  proprietor 
of  the  modest  inn  at  the  Giant's  Grave.  It  became 
evident  to  him  that  an  establishment  for  accommo- 
dating the  tourists  who  were  coming  in  increasing 
numbers  was  a  necessity  at  the  Notch  entrance,  as 
many  wished  to  stop  at  that  point  and  leave  their 

i6i 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

horses  while  they  pursued  their  way  down  the  hill 
on  foot  to  view  the  cascades,  and  on  their  return 
needed  some  refreshment.  "  Having,"  says  Mr.  Craw- 
ford, "a  disposition  to  accommodate  the  public,  and 
feeling  a  little  self-pride  to  have  another  Crawford 
settled  here,  I  consulted  with  my  father,  and  we 
agreed  to  build  here  and  place  a  brother  of  mine  in 
the  house."  In  the  autumn  of  1827,  accordingly,  the 
Crawfords  prepared  timber  for  a  frame  one  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  in  length,  and  thirty-six  feet  in 
width;  but,  just  as  they  were  about  to  raise  this, 
snow  fell  so  deeply  that  they  had  to  give  the  work  up 
for  that  year.  In  the  next  winter,  in  the  beginning  of 
1828,  Mr.  Crawford  bought  lumber  and  brick,  and  in 
the  spring  the  building  was  raised  and  joiners  put  to 
work  on  it.  They,  with  some  aid  from  the  owners, 
before  winter  set  in  had  the  outside  of  the  building 
finished  and  the  inside  so  far  advanced  toward  com- 
pletion that  the  house  was  a  comfortable  habitation. 
After  the  chief  owner  had  bought  furniture  for  it  in 
Portland  and  had  supplied  it  with  provisions,  his 
brother,  Thomas  J.,  moved  into  it  in  January,  1829. 
Owing  to  its  newness  and  to  its  convenient  location, 
it  had  a  large  share  of  the  winter  business  and  it  soon 
became  also  a  great  place  of  resort  for  the  summer 
tourists.  Thomas  J.  Crawford  remained  its  propri- 
etor until  1852.  About  this  time,  he  began  to  build  a 
hotel  on  the  site  of  the  present  Crawford  House,  but 
he  got  into  pecuniary  difficulties  and  was  obliged  to 
sell  out  to  a  company,  of  which  Mr.  J.  L.  Gibb,  who 
had  been  the  manager  of  the  Lafayette  House  in 
the  Franconia  Notch,  was  the  head.  Mr.  Gibb  com- 

162 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

pleted  the  house  *  and  ran  it  successfully  for  a  num- 
ber of  years.  In  1853,  when  fire  destroyed  the  other 
hotel  of  this  region,  the  Mount  Washington  House, 
four  miles  distant,  the  Crawford  House  was  enlarged 
by  its  enterprising  proprietor  and  the  old  Notch 
House  was  repaired  and  refurnished  to  provide  ac- 
commodations for  the  great  number  of  travelers  who 
came  to  the  Mountains.  Both  these  houses  soon  fell 
victims  to  the  fire  fiend,  the  time-honored  old  build- 
ing being  the  first  to  go,  in  1854.  The  new  structure 
succumbed  to  the  great  enemy  of  summer  hotels  on 
April  30,  1859.  In  rebuilding  it,  a  feat  of  rapid  con- 
struction, which  was  remarkable  then  and  would 
be  so  even  to-day,  was  performed,  but  sixty  days  be- 
ing required  by  the  builder  to  replace  the  structure 
on  a  somewhat  larger  scale.  And  the  lumber  had  to 
be  drawn  seventeen  miles!  On  the  night  of  July  4 
its  management  was  able  to  serve  one  hundred 
guests  in  the  dining-room.  The  present  Crawford 
House  is  substantially  the  hotel  built  at  that  time. 

The  history  of  the  old  hotel  in  the  Ammonoosuc 
Valley,  whose  fate  has  just  been  incidentally  men- 
tioned, may  well  be  recounted  here.  It  will  be  re- 
called that  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  because  of  his 
ill-health  and  his  heavy  involvement  in  debt,  was 
finally,  in  1837,  obliged  to  give  up  the  hotel  and  farm 
of  which  he  had  so  long  been  the  proprietor.  Horace 
Fabyan,  who  had  been  in  the  provision  business  in 
Portland,  took  possession  of  the  hotel  in  that  year 

^  It  appears  to  have  been  sometimes  called  after  its  proprietor. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  his  paper,  A  Time  at  the  White  Mountains, 
calls  it  "the  Gibbs  House." 

163 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

and  kept  it  with  increasing  custom  for  fifteen  years. 
Mr.  Fabyan,  who  was  destined  to  give  his  name  to 
the  hotel  and  railroad  station  of  the  present  day,  be- 
came a  noted  landlord  of  those  days.  In  1844,  he 
repaired  the  old  Willey  House  and  its  stable,  and  in 
1845,  built  close  to  it  a  hotel,  seventy  feet  by  forty, 
which  was  ready  to  receive  guests  the  next  season. 
Again  he  extended  the  field  of  his  activities  by  taking 
charge,  in  1851,  of  the  Conway  House  at  North 
Conway,  which  was  built  by  Samuel  Thom,  Nathan- 
iel Abbott,  and  Hiram  C.  Abbott  in  1850,  and  is  said 
to  have  been  then  the  finest  hotel  in  the  northern 
part  of  the  State. 

Mr.  Fabyan  made  some  repairs  on  the  hostelry 
at  the  Giant's  Grave  soon  after  taking  possession 
and  named  it  the  "Mount  Washington  House."  A 
guest  who  was  there  that  year  has  given  an  interest- 
ing account  ^  of  the  circumstances  of  hotel-keeping 
in  that  day.  The  rate  in  1837  was  $1.50  a  day.  The 
price  of  the  trip  up  Mount  Washington  was  $3. 
This  included  the  services  of  Mr.  Fabyan's  cousin, 
Oliver  Fabyan,  as  guide  and  the  use  of  horses,  which 
were  taken  to  a  point  three  miles  below  the  summit. 
A  custom,  begun  by  Mr.  Crawford,  of  exhibiting  for 
the  pleasure  of  guests  the  remarkable  echo  to  be 
heard  at  the  Giant's  Grave,  was  a  feature  of  the 
entertainment  at  the  Mount  Washington  House. 
Mr.  Fabyan  had  a  famous  tin  horn,  six  feet  long, 
which  was  often  sounded,  with  such  a  beautiful 
effect  that  one  writer  says  of  it,  "We  never  heard 
mortal  sounds  to  be  named  with  the  echoes  of  Faby- 

*  Mr.  W.  P.  Hill  in  the  White  Mountain  Echo  for  August  10,  1895. 

164 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

an*s  tin  horn."  In  1845  and  1846,  the  whole  interior 
of  the  old  house  was  remodeled  and  repaired  and 
many  improvements,  including  new  furniture  and 
fittings  for  the  house  and  a  considerable  amount  of 
grading  and  laying-out  of  grounds,  were  made.  A 
new  building,  one  hundred  and  forty  feet  by  forty 
feet  and  three  stories  high,  was  added  to  the  old 
house,  providing  fifty  more  rooms  and  making  a 
building  two  hundred  feet  long.  This  was  completed 
about  1847-48.^  The  fine  establishment  thus  created 
was  not,  however,  destined  to  accommodate  travel- 
ers for  more  than  a  few  years,  for,  in  the  spring  of 
1853,  the  fire  fiend  again  visited  this  site  and  the 
Mount  Washington  House  was  soon  in  ruins. 

For  nearly  a  score  of  years  the  White  Mountain 
House,  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  west,  was  the 
only  place  of  entertainment  in  this  locality.  The 
history  of  this  house  is  somewhat  obscure.  There 
was  evidently  a  hotel  on  this  site  at  an  early  date, 
for  Ethan  Allen  Crawford  in  the  "History"  men- 
tions it  a  number  of  times  and,  as  we  have  seen,  has 
much  to  say  of  the  annoyance  to  which  he  was  sub- 
jected by  a  man  who  bought  the  place  in  the  autumn 
of  1 83 1  and  took  possession  of  it  in  January  of  the 
next  year.    Some  time  previous  to  1843,^  a  larger 

^  Mr.  Fabyan  advertised  in  Tripp's  White  Mountain  Guide  of  1851 
thus:  "The  House  is  large  and  new,  having  been  built  only  three 
years."  The  White  Mountain  and  Winnepissiogee  Lake  Guide-Book  of 
1846  speaks  of  the  new  building  as  "nearly  finished." 

*  Hosea  Ballou,  2d,  writing  in  1845,  says  in  enumerating  and 
locating  the  dwellings  along  the  route  through  the  Mountains,  "Sixth: 
Half  a  mile  farther  northwest  [i.e.,  beyond  Fabyan's  from  the  Notch 
House]  Ethan  A.  Crawford's,  a  two-story  tavern  [Mr.  Crawford  de- 
scribes it  as  'the  large  three-story  building'],  built  within  a  few 
years." 

165 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

house  seems  to  have  been  built  here  by  a  Mr.  Rose- 
brook,  one  of  the  pioneer  family,  members  of  which 
had  established  themselves  at  what  is  now  Twin 
Mountain.  It  was  this  building,  apparently,  which 
Ethan  Allen  Crawford  hired  on  his  return  to  the 
Mountains  in  the  year  last  mentioned  and  in  which 
the  remainder  of  his  days  was  passed.  About  1850, 
it  was  repaired  and  fitted  up  by  Colonel  John  H. 
White  and  was  opened  the  following  June.^  It  is 
now  the  oldest  hotel  in  the  Mountains. 

Passing  now  geographically  from  the  rugged  and 
impressive  region  of  the  Presidential  Range  and 
Crawford  Notch  to  the  milder  but  no  less  satisfy- 
ingly  beautiful  Franconia  region,  we  find  that  estab- 
lishments for  entertaining  tourists  were  early  built 
and  opened  in  this  part  of  the  Mountains.^  What 
appears  to  have  been  the  earliest  house  of  entertain- 
ment in  the  Franconia  Notch  was  situated  about  one 
thousand  feet  south  of  the  present  Flume  House  and 
on  the  same  side  of  the  road.  It  was  a  small  affair,' 

^  According  to  an  advertisement  in  Tripp's  Guide  to  the  White 
Mountains  (1851).  This  guide-book  speaks  of  it  in  the  text  as  "a 
new  and  neat  House";  Beckett's  Portland,  White  Mountains  &  Mon- 
treal Railroad  Guide  (1853),  describes  it  as  "a  modern  built,  neat  and 
commodious  establishment " ;  Eastman's  The  White  Mountain  Guide- 
Book  (1858),  says  it  is  "on  the  site  of  the  Rosebrook  House." 

*  I  am  indebted  for  a  number  of  facts  to  Colonel  C.  H.  Greenleaf, 
of  the  Profile  House,  the  senior  hotel-man  of  the  White  Mountains, 
who  has  lived  every  summer  since  i860  at  this  hotel,  of  which  he  be- 
came one  of  the  proprietors  in  1865. 

*  In  The  White  Mountain  and  Winnepissiogee  Lake  Guide-Book 
(1846),  the  compiler,  in  describing  the  Pool,  says  that  curiosity  is  sit- 
uated "about  f  of  a  mile  from  Knight's  Tavern."  This  hostelry  is 
also  mentioned  by  name  in  Charles  Lanman's  descriptive  piece,  "The 
Green  and  White  Mountains,"  written  in  1847  and  included  in  hi8 
Adventures  in  the  Wilds  0}  the  United  States  and  British  American 
Provinces  (1856). 

166 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

evidently  opened  for  the  accommodation  of  the  pass- 
ing traveler. 

The  first  hotel  of  any  consequence  erected  in  this 
region  was  the  Lafayette  House,  whose  site  is  about 
five  hundred  feet  southeast  of  the  present  Profile 
House  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  highway.  It  was 
built  and  opened  in  1835,^  as  appears  from  Harriet 
Martineau's  account  of  her  excursion  to  the  Fran- 
conia  Notch  in  that  year.  Its  proprietor  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  was  J.  L.  Gibb,  formerly  of  Littleton 
and  later  of  the  Crawford  House. 

About  1848,2  the  Flume  House,  the  first  hotel  of 
that  name,  was  built.  In  1849,  it  was  bought  and 
opened,  on  June  30,  by  Richard  Taft,  a  native  of 
Barre,  Vermont,  then  proprietor  of  the  Washington 
House  at  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  to  whom  the 
Franconia  Notch  region  in  particular  and  New 
Hampshire  in  general  owes  a  great  debt,  for  what  he 
accomplished  in  the  development  of  the  Mountain 
country  as  a  summer  resort  and  in  the  introduc- 
tion of  city  conveniences,  methods,  and  cuisine  into 
hotel  life  in  the  hills.  Says  Dr.  W.  C.  Prime:  "Mr. 
Taft  was  a  man  of  exceedingly  quiet  demeanor,  but 
of  great  ability,  foresight,  and  cautious  energy  .  .  . 
a  man  of  the  most  unswerving  probity  of  character. 

*  Not  1836,  as  has  been  heretofore  stated.  Narrating  her  experi- 
ences on  the  day,  a  rainy  one,  devoted  to  this  trip  she  says  that  her 
party  took  refuge  from  one  shower  in  "the  solitary  dwelling  of  the 
pass,  called  the  Lafayette  Hotel."  "This  house,"  she  continues,  "  had 
been  growing  in  the  woods  thirteen  weeks  before,  and  yet  we  were  far 
from  being  among  its  first  guests." 

'  It  must  have  been  open  under  this  name  as  early  as  1848,  for 
Oakes's  White  Mountain  Scenery,  published  in  that  year,  mentions  it. 
It  was  located  a  few  rods  to  the  south  of  the  present  hotel. 

167 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

.  .  .  He  commanded  the  respect  and  confidence  of 
all  men."  When  he  began  hotel-keeping  at  the 
Flume  House,  the  price  of  board  was  $1.50  a  day. 
The  entire  receipts  of  his  first  season  were  only 
eighteen  hundred  dollars,  but,  as  business  increased 
from  year  to  year,  Mr.  Taft,  with  characteristic  en- 
terprise, acquired  the  Lafayette  House,  five  miles 
above,  and  a  tract  of  land  around  it,  and  in  1852, 
with  his  associates,  George  T.  Brown  and  Ira  Coffin, 
began  the  building  of  the  Profile  House.  This 
famous  hostelry  was  completed  and  opened  to  the 
public  in  1853,^  with  a  capacity  of  one  hundred  and 
ten  rooms,  which  was  increased  by  a  large  addition 
in  1866,  the  year  after  Colonel  Greenleaf  entered 
the  firm.  From  1865  to  1869,  the  proprietors  were 
Taft,  Tyler,  and  Greenleaf.  In  the  latter  year  Mr. 
Tyler  retired  from  the  firm.  In  1872,  extensive  addi- 
tions and  improvements,  including  the  great  dining- 
hall,  were  made  by  Messrs.  Taft  and  Greenleaf,  the 
new  firm.  The  old  Flume  House  having  been  burned, 
probably  a  year  or  two  before,  the  present  hotel  was 
in  that  same  year  erected  near  its  site,  the  two 
properties  being  owned  in  common.  The  first  of  the 
group  of  cottages,  which  form  such  a  feature  of  the 
Profile  House  settlement,  was  built  in  1868. 

Before  leaving  the  early  history  of  hotel-keeping 
in  the  Franconia  Notch,  mention  should  be  made 
of  the  Mount  Lafayette  House,  a  small  hotel  which 
once  stood  on  a  spot,  sometimes  called  the  "Half- 

^  This  is  the  correct  date  of  the  opening,  as  a  letter  in  the  New 
York  Herald  for  July  3,  1853,  makes  evident,  and  not  1852,  as  is 
usually  stated. 

168 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

way  Place"  or  "Lafayette  Place,"  two  and  a  quarter 
miles  below  the  Profile  House  and  near  the  point  of 
divergence  from  the  highway  of  the  original  bridle 
path  up  Mount  Lafayette.  Built  probably  in  the  late 
fifties,  it  was,  after  a  short  existence,  burned  in  the 
spring  of  1861.  Still  another  hotel  situated  in  this 
region  and  named  after  the  monarch  of  the  Fran- 
conias  was  the  Mount  Lafayette  House  which  stood 
near  the  junction  of  the  Gale  River  road  with  the 
road  from  the  Profile  House  to  Franconia,  at  the 
bottom  of  "Three-Mile  Hill."  It  has  a  particular 
interest  to  literary  folk  and  others  from  the  associa- 
tion with  it  of  Dr.  W.  C.  Prime,  author  of  "I  Go 
A-Fishing"  and  "Along  New  England  Roads,"  and 
his  sister,  the  author  and  entomologist,  Mrs.  Annie 
Trumbull  Slosson.  Dr.  Prime  built  and  occupied  a 
summer  cottage  in  the  hotel  grounds,  which  is  still 
standing.  The  hotel  property  was  sold  by  Mrs. 
Slosson  in  1908  to  James  Smith,  of  Franconia,  and 
was  burned  to  the  ground  in  May,  191 1.* 

Putting  on  our  seven-league  boots  and  jumping 
in  our  narrative  of  early  hotel-keeping  to  a  beautiful 
valley  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Mountains,  we  will 
feign  ourselves  to  have  landed  at  Gorham  in  the 
northern  part  of  that  district.  At  this  attractively 
situated  mountain  village,  which  is  ninety-two  miles 
from  Portland  and  to  which  the  railroad  made  its 
way  in  1852,  the  traveler  alighted  from  the  train  in 
the  fifties  and  sixties  of  the  last  century  at  the 
White  Mountain  Station  House,  which,  as  this  name 

*  I  am  indebted  for  this  date  to  Eva  M.  Aldrich,  Librarian  of  the 
Abbie  Greenleaf  Library,  Franconia. 

169 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

indicates,  served  the  dual  purpose  of  station  and 
hotel.  This  comfortable  hostelry,  whose  name  was 
soon  changed  to  the  more  euphonious  one  of  Alpine 
House,  had  accommodations  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  guests,  and  was  long  a  popular  place  of  sojourn. 
Gorham  became  at  once,  after  the  coming  of  the 
railroad,  one  of  the  chief  Mountain  resorts,  if  it  did 
not,  indeed,  in  the  days  of  Starr  King  hold  the  pre- 
eminence. The  hotel  was  for  many  years  under  the 
efficient  landlordship  of  Colonel  John  R.  Hitchcock, 
who  was  also  a  proprietor,  as  we  shall  see,  of  the 
Summit  and  Tip-Top  Houses  on  Mount  Washington, 
as  well  as  a  director  in  the  original  Mount  Wash- 
ington Carriage  Road  Company.  After  twenty  years 
of  existence,  however,  this  famous  hotel  went  the 
way  of  so  many  others,  falling  a  prey  to  the  flames 
in  October,  1872.  This  disaster  marked  the  passing 
of  Gorham's  supremacy  as  a  resort.  A  second 
Alpine  House  was  built  in  1876.  This  was  closed 
in  November,  1905,  and  was  subsequently  moved 
across  the  street  and  made  a  part  of  the  present 
Mount  Madison  House,  which  is  a  commercial 
hotel,  open  all  the  year  round,  as  well  as  one  used 
as  a  place  of  summer  sojourn. 

Traveling  now  in  our  imaginary  hotel  tour  of  the 
White  Mountains  eight  miles  to  the  southward,  to 
the  picturesque  location  in  the  valley  of  the  Peabody 
River  known  as  the  "Glen,"  we  find  that  the  first 
public  house  on  that  site  was  begun  in  1852  by  John 
Bellows.  It  was  not  completed  in  time  for  the  season 
of  that  year,  but  a  few  guests  were  entertained. 
Probably  still  in  an  unfinished  state,  this  modest 

170 


THE   OLD    PROFILE    HOUSE,  OPENED    1S53,   CLOSED    1905 


ill' II 


iiiiiiuTpnrii'* 


THE    FLUME    HOUSE 
An  Old  View  showing  tlie  House  when  Smaller  than  at  Present 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

tavern,  which  was  on  the  stage-road  from  Gor- 
ham  to  North  Conway,  was  bought  by  Mr.  J.  M, 
Thompson,  who  changed  its  name  to  the  Glen 
House,  and  was  indefatigable  in  developing  the 
property  and  making  the  region  popular  by  building 
paths  to  the  waterfalls  and  other  points  of  interest, 
and  even  one  up  Mount  Washington.  Unfortunately, 
he  was  drowned  in  the  Peabody  River  in  October, 
1869,  when  trying  to  prevent  the  destruction  of  his 
mill  by  a  flood  which  followed  an  autumnal  storm  of 
exceptional  severity.  A  few  years  after  the  lamented 
death  of  Landlord  Thompson,  the  hotel  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  brothers  Milliken,  under  whose 
skillful  management  it  attained  great  development 
and  popularity,  only  to  meet,  after  years  of  success, 
with  repeated  disaster,  and  apparently  to  come  to  an 
end  as  a  large  enterprise.  The  story  of  this  mingled 
prosperity  and  adversity  will,  however,  be  deferred 
to  a  later  chapter. 

Continuing  our  tour,  let  us  go  farther  southward 
on  the  stage-road  passing  the  Glen  House,  and  we 
shall  come,  after  a  ride  of  a  dozen  miles,  to  the  little 
village  which  commemorates  in  this  region  the 
victor  of  New  Orleans. 

Jackson  was  late  in  coming  to  its  own  as  a  sum- 
mer resort,  and  this  quiet  hamlet  in  a  secluded  glen 
owed  its  discovery  as  a  center  of  landscape  beauties 
to  the  artists.  The  pioneer  painters  came  as  early 
as  1847.  Hotel-keeping  began  with  the  opening  of 
the  Jackson  Falls  House  in  1858.^  The  Iron  Moun- 
tain House  was  opened  in  1861  and  was  burned  in 

^  It  was  rebuilt  and  enlarged  in  1886. 
171 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

1877;  a  new  house  of  the  same  name  first  received 
guests  in  the  season  of  1885.  The  year  1876  was  the 
opening  year  of  the  Glen  Ellis  House.  In  the  early 
days  Cole,  Durand,  Judge  Story  and  Daniel  Web- 
ster were  visitors  to  Jackson.  It  is  related  that 
board  was  then  $2  a  week,  the  landlady  doing  the 
cooking  and  the  landlord  serving  the  frugal  meals. 
Now,  Jackson  is  a  place  of  many  hotels  and  board- 
ing-houses, as  well  as  of  summer  cottages  in  goodly 
number.  Right  in  the  heart  of  the  village,  near  the 
Wildcat  River,  is  the  Wentworth  Hall,  which  re- 
produces the  picturesque  architecture  of  an  English 
mansion  of  Queen  Anne's  time.  The  Thorn  Moun- 
tain House,  a  part  of  the  Wentworth  Hall  estab- 
lishment, was  opened  on  July  12, 1869,  by  General 
M.  C.  Wentworth,  with  twenty- two  rooms.  In  1914, 
the  establishment  consisted  of  these  two  houses  and 
thirty-one  other  buildings,  including  a  group  of  at- 
tractive cottages.^  Gray's  Inn  has  long  been  a  lead- 
ing hotel  of  Jackson.  Its  recent  history  is  of  especial 
interest.  The  first  hotel  of  this  name  was  burned  in 
1902.  A  new  one  was  soon  begun  and  was  nearly 
completed,  when  it,  too,  went  up  in  smoke  in  the 
winter  of  1903.  Nothing  daunted,  Landlord  Gray, 
who  was  his  own  architect  and  builder,  at  once 
commenced  to  build  another  hotel.  This  time  noth- 
ing untoward  happened  and  a  new  and  commodi- 
ous Gray's  Inn  was  opened  the  week  of  August  15, 
1904.  Open  in  winter  as  well  as  in  summer,  this 
hostelry  was  a  popular  place  of  sojourn  at  both  sea- 

'  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  the  late  General  Wentworth  for 
information  as  to  his  establishment. 

172 


THE  EARLY  HOTELS 

sons.  But  after  about  a  dozen  years  of  prosperity, 
Landlord  Gray  again  met  with  adversity,  for  on 
February  21,  1916,  the  inn,  together  with  its  casino, 
was  totally  destroyed  by  fire.  Fortunately,  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  guests  all  escaped  without  injury. 

Let  us  conclude  this  chapter  by  taking  a  broad 
jump  in  a  southwesterly  direction  to  the  extreme 
southern  limit  of  the  White  Mountain  region,  —  to 
the  town  of  Plymouth,  to  be  specific  in  our  destina- 
tion. In  the  days  of  its  political  importance  and 
before  the  advent  of  the  summer  visitor,  there  was, 
of  course,  a  transient  population  of  considerable 
number  in  the  village  from  time  to  time,  but  espe- 
cially when  the  county  court  was  in  session.  From 
soon  after  the  settlement  a  tavern  was  in  existence, 
conducted  successively  by  Colonel  David  Webster 
and  his  son,  Colonel  William.  In  1841,  Denison  R. 
Burnham  purchased  the  popular  and  historic  old 
Webster  Tavern,  built  an  addition,  and  changed  the 
name  of  the  inn  to  that  of  Pemigewasset  House,  a 
name  which  has  survived  a  number  of  fires  and  is 
still  retained.  Under  Mr.  Burnham's  able  manage- 
ment the  hotel  became  a  popular  one,  and,  after  the 
coming  of  the  railroad,  business  increased  so  that 
some  time  in  the  early  fifties  another  addition  was 
made  and  again  later  still  another.^ 

This  old  hostelry  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1862, 
and  the  land  was  then  sold  to  the  railroad  company, 
which  immediately  erected,  in  1863,  another  hotel 
of  the  same  name.    This  was  the  house  in  which 

*  I  am  indebted  for  information  about  her  father's  hotel  to  the 
late  Abbie  Burnham  Greenleaf. 

173 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Hawthorne  died  the  next  year.  It  was  built  on  a 
hillside  and  fronted  on  the  village  street,  with  which 
its  main  floor  was  on  a  level,  while  in  the  rear  was  a 
lower  floor  in  which  was  the  railroad  station.  Large, 
commodious,  and  well-kept,  it  was  long  a  popular 
place  of  resort.  This  famous  old  house  was  burned 
in  1908  and  has  been  replaced  by  a  fine  modern 
hotel,  the  New  Pemigewasset  House,  which  is  sit- 
uated a  short  distance  from  the  old  location  and 
which  was  opened  July  i,  19 13. 


VIII 

THE   POETS  AND  PAINTERS  IN  THE  WHITE  HILLS 

As  is  to  be  expected,  the  natural  beauties  of  the 
White  Mountains,  their  lofty  summits,  their  bare 
or  tree-clad  slopes  or  crags,  their  streams,  their  cas- 
cades, their  lakes,  and  their  scenic  curiosities,  and 
even  their  few  legends,  have  been  sources  of  inspi- 
ration to  a  multitude  of  poets  and  verse-makers. 
Thus  the  pleasure  afforded  by  some  of  the  best 
nature  poetry  in  American  literature  is  another 
perennial  enjoyment  which  we  owe  to  the  Crystal 
Hills.  To  this  additional  possession  of  White 
Mountain  lovers,  many  sons  and  daughters  of  New 
Hampshire,  whether  they  be  children  who  have 
remained  at  home  or  children  who  have  pitched 
their  tent  permanently  elsewhere,  have  contributed 
by  singing  the  glories  of  these  hills  in  verse  of  greater 
or  less  merit.  Among  such  represented  in  Eugene 
R.  Musgrove's  well-chosen  anthology,  "The  White 
Hills  in  Poetry,"  are  George  Waldo  Browne,  James 
T.  Fields,  Charles  James  Fox,  George  Bancroft 
Griffith,  Edward  Augustus  Jenks,  Fanny  Runnells 
Poole,  and  Celia  Thaxter.  The  most  notable  singer 
by  far  in  this  connection  is,  undoubtedly,  Edna  Dean 
Proctor,  who  has  made  her  native  hills  the  theme  of 
numerous  poems  of  high  excellence. 

Preeminently,  however,  the  poet  of  the  White 
Hills  is  a  native  of  the  sister  Commonwealth  of 

175 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Massachusetts,  a  poet  whose  inspiration  came  from 
summer  acquaintance  with  them,  John  Greenleaf 
Whittier.  He  and  his  intimate  friend  and  literary 
associate,  Lucy  Larcom,  were  both  ardent  lovers  of 
the  New  Hampshire  country  and  frequent  sojourn- 
ers among  the  Mountains  or  in  the  bordering  lake- 
land, and  both  have  written  much  verse  about  this 
beautiful  region.  But  Whittier  only,  Mr.  Musgrove 
has  pointed  out,  has  given  us  a  series  of  pictures  of 
this  mountain  land  and  has  enriched  American 
poetry  with  exquisite  descriptions  of  New  Hamp- 
shire scenery. 

The  Quaker  poet's  first  poem  having  to  do  with 
the  region  is  one  published  under  the  title,  "The 
White  Mountains,"  in  his  earliest  book,  "Legends 
of  New  England  in  Prose  and  Verse,"  which  ap- 
peared at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  February,  1831. 
This  short  piece  of  verse,  which  seems  to  have  been 
composed  before  the  poet  knew  the  Mountains  by 
visual  experience,  is  concerned  with  the  Indian 
belief  that  Mount  Washington  was  the  abode  of 
powerful  spirits,  whose  voices  were  heard  in  the 
pauses  of  the  tempests,  and  with  the  passing  of 
ancient  conditions.^ 

Whittier's  first  recorded  visit  to  the  region  he  was 
later  to  make  one  of  his  summer  homes  was  for  a 
quite  different  purpose.  Through  his  interest  in  the 
anti-slavery  cause  and  his  literary  activity  in  its 
behalf,  the  poet  had  attracted  the  attention  of  that 

^  With  the  title  "Mount  Agiochook"  substituted  for  its  original 
one,  the  poem  was  printed  in  the  author's  complete  works,  but  was 
finally  relegated  to  an  append  be. 

176 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

most  brilliant  of  early  anti-slavery  editors,  Nathaniel 
Peabody  Rogers.^  One  of  the  first  letters  of  approval 
and  encouragement  Whittier  received  after  publish- 
ing, in  1833,  the  pamphlet  "Justice  and  Expediency," 
in  favor  of  immediate  emancipation,  was  from 
Rogers,  who  then  invited  the  young  writer  to  visit 
his  mountain  home  on  the  banks  of  the  Pemige- 
wasset  in  Plymouth.  Their  personal  acquaintance 
was  first  made  two  years  afterwards,  when  the  in- 
vitation was  accepted  by  Whittier.  He  was  accom- 
panied on  this  journey  by  the  eloquent  English 
reformer,  George  Thompson,  who  in  response  to 
Garrison's  invitation  had  come  to  this  country  to 
deliver  anti-slavery  addresses  and  whom  the  poet 
had  been  hiding  from  the  mobs  in  the  seclusion  of 
his  East  Haverhill  home.  "We  drove  up  the  beauti- 
ful valley  of  the  White  Mountain  tributary  of  the 

^  Rogers,  in  1838,  gave  up  his  law  practice  at  Plymouth  and  left 
his  native  valley  to  reside  at  Concord  for  the  purpose  of  editing  The 
Herald  of  Freedom,  an  anti-slavery  paper  established  a  few  years  be- 
fore. As  a  newspaper  writer  he  had  few,  if  any,  equals  in  his  day. 
He  used  to  write  for  the  New  York  Tribune  under  the  signature  "The 
Old  Man  of  the  Mountain."  "His  descriptions  of  natural  scenery," 
says  Whittier  in  his  "portrait"  of  his  friend,  "glow  with  life.  One 
can  almost  see  the  sunset  light  flooding  the  Franconia  Notch,  and 
glorifying  the  peaks  of  Moosehillock,  and  hear  the  murmur  of  the 
west  wind  in  the  pines,  and  the  light,  liquid  voice  of  Pemigewasset 
sounding  up  from  its  rocky  channel,  through  its  green  hem  of  maples, 
while  reading  them."  His  last  visit  to  his  old  home  was  in  the  autumn 
of  1845.  In  a  familiar  letter  to  a  friend  he  penned  a  beautiful  descrip- 
tion of  his  native  town  as  seen  in  what  was  to  be  his  farewell  view  of 
it.  His  health,  never  robust,  gradually  failed  for  some  time  previous 
to  his  death.  Needing  more  repose  and  quiet  than  his  duties  as  editor 
permitted  him  to  enjoy,  he  bought  a  small  and  pleasant  farm  in  his 
loved  Pemigewasset  Valley,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  there  recuper- 
ate his  wasted  energies.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  enjoy  this  asylum, 
for  his  death  occurred  shortly  afterward,  in  October,  1846.  His 
family,  however,  occupied  it  for  some  years. 

177 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Merrimac,"  writes  Whittier,  "and,  just  as  a  glorious 
sunset  was  steeping  river,  valley,  and  mountain  in 
its  hues  of  heaven,  were  welcomed  to  the  pleasant 
home  and  family  circle  of  our  friend  Rogers."  With 
these  friends  they  spent  "two  delightful  evenings." 

Early  in  the  forties,  apparently,  Whittier  made  a 
journey  through  the  heart  of  the  Notch  in  a  stage- 
coach, which  leisurely  mode  of  traveling  he  enjoyed 
greatly,  and  also  ascended  "old  Agioochook."  It 
had  as  its  literary  fruit  the  prologue  of  "The  Bridal 
of  Pennacook,"  the  opening  of  which  is  a  glorified 
itinerary.  This  poem  appeared  in  1844. 

The  poet  was  again  in  the  Mountain  region  in  the 
summer  of  1849,  sojourning  there  several  weeks  at 
that  time.  Some  years  afterward  he  again  visited 
the  Rogers  family,  this  time  for  a  week,  before  they 
left  their  home  near  Plymouth  for  the  West.  This 
was  probably  in  1853. 

Three  years  later  he  published  in  The  National 
Era  the  poem  "Mary  Garvin,"  whose  prologue,  be- 
ginning, "From  the  heart  of  Waumbek  Methna, 
from  the  lake  that  never  fails,"  deals  descriptively 
with  the  Saco  River,  near  the  mouth  of  which  the 
scene  of  the  poem  is  laid. 

In  the  spring  of  1865,  Whittier  came  to  Campton, 
where  his  friends  James  T.  and  Annie  Fields  were 
then  making  their  place  of  summer  sojourn,  board- 
ing at  Selden  C.  Willey's  farm,  and  there  the  poem 
"Franconia  from  the  Pemigewasset,"  constituting 
the  first  of  his  "Mountain  Pictures,"  was  expanded 
and  modified  from  the  first  stanza  composed  at 
Lovewell's  Pond  in  Fryeburg,  Maine. 

178 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

Soon  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  the  poet  of 
freedom  seems  to  have  made  his  first  trip  to  the 
locality  in  the  White  Mountain  region  which  was  to 
become  his  favorite  mountain  retreat  and  in  which 
to-day  his  name  is  chiefly  commemorated  geographi- 
cally. The  success  of  "Snow-Bound"  had  rendered 
him  not  only  pecuniarily  independent  and  able  to 
afford  many  added  comforts  and  luxuries,  but  also 
had  given  him  a  firm  place  in  the  hearts  of  his  coun- 
trymen. The  days  of  struggle  and  patient  endurance 
of  adversity  were  over.  In  the  summer  of  1867,  he 
made  a  stay  at  the  Bearcamp  River  House  in  West 
Ossipee.  This  "quiet,  old-fashioned  inn,  beautifully 
located,  neat  as  possible,  large  rooms,  nice  beds,  and 
good,  wholesome  table,"  was  situated  near  the  banks 
of  the  picturesque  stream  from  which  it  got  its 
name  and  only  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  railway 
station.  In  early  days  the  public  house  on  this  site 
had  been  known  as  "Ames's  Tavern,"  and  after- 
wards as  "Banks's^Hotel,"  and  the  fact  that  among 
its  frequenters  in  the  primitive  days  were  Starr 
King  and  the  artists,  George  Inness,  George  L. 
Brown,  and  Benjamin  Champney,  is  ample  testi- 
mony to  the  satisfying  qualities  of  the  views,  in 
which  Chocorua  is  the  dominating  object,  and  of  the 
environing  scenes. 

Amid  such  surroundings  the  inspiration  came  to 
Whittier  to  write  an  idyl  of  New  England  farm  life, 
a  companion  summer  piece  to  his  winter  idyl, 
"Snow-Bound,"  and  so  here  in  part  was  composed 
the  charming  poem  "Among  the  Hills."  His  first 
thought  was  to  call  this  poem,  which  combines  a 

179 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

tender  and  romantic  love-story  with  a  faithful  por- 
trayal of  rural  scenes,  "A  Summer  Idyl,"  but  when 
it  appeared  in  its  first  form,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  January,  1868,  it  was  entitled  "The  Wife:  an 
Idyl  of  Bearcamp  Water."  Before  the  poem  ap- 
peared in  the  volume  to  which  it  gave  the  title  early 
in  1869,  the  prelude  had  been  expanded  and  so 
changed  in  tenor  as  to  be  a  new  poem  and  the  out- 
lines of  the  story  filled  out.  This  working-over  and 
"blossoming-out"  took  place  during  that  summer. 

For  several  summers  and  autumns  from  1875  on, 
Whittier  spent  a  number  of  weeks  at  the  Bearcamp 
River  House,  enjoying  greatly  his  sojourns  there  be- 
cause of  the  modest  comfort,  the  pleasant  associa- 
tions, and  the  beautiful  view.  Chocorua  he  regarded 
as  the  most  beautiful  and  striking  of  all  the  New 
Hampshire  hills,  and  the  location  of  the  hotel  he 
esteemed  one  of  the  most  picturesque  situations  in 
the  State.  Besides  "Among  the  Hills,"  several 
other  poems,  among  them  "Sunset  on  the  Bear- 
camp," and  "Voyage  of  the  Jettie,"  were  written  at 
this,  Whittier's  "Wayside  Inn,"  and  celebrate  the 
beauties  of  the  region.  The  hotel  was  sometimes 
nearly  filled  with  relatives  and  friends  of  the  poet 
and  these  reunions  were  occasions  full  of  enjoyment 
to  him.  He  could  not  accompany  his  friends  on  their 
mountain-climbs  —  he  did  not  care  to  ascend  moun- 
tains for  the  prospect  they  afford  —  and  on  their 
drives,  but  he  liked  greatly  to  hear  the  reports  of 
adventures  brought  to  him  by  the  younger  members 
of  his  party. ^  He  enjoyed  also  being  quiet  and  alone. 

*  The  following  anecdote,  related  by  Mr.  Pickard  in  Whittier-Land, 

180 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

Rarely  was  a  transient  guest  invited  to  join  the 
poet's  circle,  as  he  was  usually  under  some  constraint 
in  the  presence  of  a  stranger. 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1875,  Lucy  Larcom 
and  he  were  engaged  together  here  in  the  compila- 
tion of  "Songs  of  Three  Centuries,"  but  this  work 
"was  not  allowed  to  interfere  seriously  with  the 
main  object  of  a  summer  outing,  rest  and  recrea- 
tion," says  his  biographer. 

Five  years  later  the  hotel  was  burned  down, 
"much  to  my  regret,"  he  writes  to  Marshall  P. 
Hall  in  May,  1881,  in  the  same  letter  expressing  a 
hope  that  another  house  will  be  built  on  its  site. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  last  named,  Whittier 
spent  several  weeks  at  Intervale  with  his  cousins, 
Joseph  and  Gertrude  W.  Cartland,  who  were  his 
summer  companions  the  remaining  twelve  years  of 
his  life.  He  much  enjoyed  the  quiet,  restful  meadow 

exhibits  the  poet's  keen  enjoyment  of  fun  and  his  ability  to  unbend 
even  to  jollity  and  to  the  production  of  verse  written  in  a  rollicking 
vein.  One  day  in  September,  1876,  a  party  of  seven  of  Whittier's 
friends  climbed  Chocorua  under  the  guidance  of  the  Knox  brothers, 
two  young  farmers  and  bear-hunters  of  West  Ossipee,  camping  for  the 
night  on  the  mountain  near  some  bear-traps.  The  young  ladies  re- 
ported to  the  poet  the  hearing  of  the  growling  of  the  bears  in  the 
night  and  other  blood-curdling  incidents.  Shortly  afterward  the 
Knox  brothers  gave  a  husking-bee  at  their  barn,  at  which  Whittier 
and  the  members  of  his  party  were  present.  Whittier  wrote  a  poem, 
entitled  "How  They  Climbed  Chocorua,"  for  the  occasion,  and  in- 
duced Lucy  Larcom  to  read  it  as  the  production  of  an  unknown  author. 
These  humorous  stanzas,  with  their  references  to  the  incidents  of  the 
excursion  and  their  personal  mentions  of  the  climbers,  were  re- 
ceived with  great  delight.  The  next  evening  Miss  Larcom  read  to  the 
party  gathered  round  the  fireside  at  the  inn  a  humorous  poem,  en- 
titled "To  the  Unknown  and  Absent  Author  of  'How  They  Climbed 
Chocorua,'  "  in  which  the  poet  was  alleged  to  have  been  caught  by 
the  coat-tails  in  one  of  the  bear-traps  on  the  mountain. 

iSi 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

views  and  the  noble  distant  mountain  prospects  of 
this  charming  spot.  He  loved  to  watch  the  snow- 
streaks  on  Mount  Washington,  which  he  once 
expressed  the  wish  he  might  see  all  covered  with 
snow  as  in  winter.  The  beautiful  pine  woods  near 
the  hotel  became  a  favorite  resort  of  the  poet,  where 
he  passed  a  part  of  nearly  every  day,  often  with  a 
group  of  friends  in  the  unconventional  social  inter- 
course he  so  highly  prized. 

Such  are  the  outlines  of  the  poet's  connection 
with  the  White  Mountains.  To-day  the  visitor  to 
the  Ossipee  region  finds  the  northwest  summit  of 
the  Ossipee  Range  bearing,  at  Sweetser's  suggestion, 
the  name  of  "  Whittier  Peak,"  or  "  Mount  Whittier." 
The  railroad  station  of  West  Ossipee  has  recently 
become  Mount  Whittier,  while  in  the  near  vicinity 
is  a  hamlet  also  named  in  the  poet's  honor. 

The  lifelong  friendship  of  Lucy  Larcom  with 
Whittier  began  in  1844,^  during  his  residence  in 
Lowell,  where  she  was  then  employed  in  the  mills 
and  had  been  brought  into  notice  as  one  of  the 
leading  contributors  to  the  Lowell  Offering,  that 
famous  magazine  which  attracted  so  much  atten- 
tion as  a  successful  literary  venture  by  factory 
operatives.  Whittier  assisted  and  encouraged  her 
in  her  literary  work  and  she  in  turn  assisted  him 
not  only  in  compiling  "Songs  of  Three  Centuries," 
but  in  other  editorial  work.^  She  became,  after  her 

^  So  Pickard,  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Greenleaf  Whittier;  Daniel 
Dulany  Addison's  Lucy  Larcom:  Life,  Letters,  and  Diary,  states  that 
it  was  in  1843  that  she  first  met  Mr.  Whittier. 

*  First  in  1871  in  the  compilation  of  "Child  Life:  a  Collection  of 
Poems." 

182 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

• 

return  from  the  West  in  1853,  his  sister  Elizabeth's 
dearest  friend,  and  all  his  remaining  life,  and  par- 
ticularly after  Elizabeth's  death,  the  elder  poet  was 
ever  thoughtful  for  her  welfare.  Kindred  souls  as 
they  were,  the  two  poets  were  much  in  each  other's 
society,  and  many  letters  passed  between  them. 

Early  in  the  sixties,  —  to  be  exact,  in  August, 
1861,  —  Miss  Larcom  began  to  be  a  regular  summer 
sojourner  among  the  hills  of  New  Hampshire,  a 
practice  which  had  as  one  result  the  writing  of  many 
beautiful  poems.  Her  usual  place  of  resort  at  first 
was  Campton,  where,  like  the  Fieldses,  she  boarded 
at  Selden  C.  Willey's.^  There  "Hills  in  Mist,"  "My 
Mountain,"  "Valley  Peak,"  and  other  poems  were 
composed.  Other  retreats  of  Miss  Larcom  in  the 
White  Mountains,  or  the  vicinity,  were  Ossipee 
Park,  West  Ossipee,  Sandwich,  Berlin  Falls,  Beth- 
lehem, Mount  Moosilauke,  Center  Harbor,  and 
Bethel  (in  Maine) .  Even  a  mere  enumeration  of  some 
others  of  her  White  Mountain  poems,  with  mention 
of  the  places  and  dates  of  their  composition,  not  only 
makes  amply  evident  her  wide  and  long  acquaintance 
with  the  region,  but  suggests  her  ardent  love  of  it. 
"Up  the  Androscoggin"  was  written  at  Berlin  Falls 
in  1878;  "Asleep  on  the  Summit,"  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, in  August,  1877;  "Clouds  on  Whiteface," 
at  North  Sandwich;  "From  the  Hills,"  on  Mount 

^  In  1867,  writing  to  Jean  Ingelow,  she  says,  "To  me  there  is  rest 
and  strength,  and  aspiration  and  exultation,  among  the  mountains. 
They  are  nearly  a  day's  journey  from  us,  —  the  White  Mountains,  — 
but  I  will  go,  and  get  a  glimpse  and  a  breath  of  their  glory,  once  a 
year,  always. ...  I  usually  stop  at  a  village  on  the  banks  of  the  Pemige- 
wasset,  a  small  silvery  river  that  flows  from  the  Notch  Mountains. . . . 
But  I  must  not  go  on  about  the  mountains,  or  I  shall  never  stop." 

183 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Moosilauke,  1891 ;  "  Garfield's  Burial  Day,"  ascend- 
ing Mount  Washington,  September  26,  1881;  and 
"A  Mountain  Resurrection,"  at  North  Sandwich,  in 
1863.  Other  poems  which  owe  their  inspiration  to 
the  monarch  of  the  hills  are,  "In  a  Cloud-Rift," 
"Looking  Down,"  and  "The  Summit-Flower." 
"Mountaineer's  Prayer"  was  written  on  the  sum- 
mit of  Moosilauke,  September  7, 1892,  the  day  after 
Whittier's  death. 

The  hills  gave  Miss  Larcom  rest  and  the  beauty 
of  the  views  with  their  suggestions  gave  her  inspira- 
tion for  her  work.  Each  year  she  tried  to  visit  the 
various  points  she  especially  loved.  Bethel  charmed 
her  with  its  majestic  elms  and  its  view  of  the  An- 
droscoggin and  the  distant  mountains.  At  Russell's 
Riverside  Cottage,  where  she  was  ever  welcome,  she 
frequently  stayed,  and  on  the  ledge  behind  the  house 
there  is  a  little  glen,  in  which  she  used  to  sit  and 
read,  known  as  "Miss  Larcom's  Retreat."  ^  Bethle- 
hem gave  her  relief  from  hay-fever, ^  and  was  al- 
ways "the  beautiful."  From  these  places  and  from 
Moosilauke,  her  favorite  summit,  she  frequently 
wrote  charming  letters  to  the  Portland  Transcript. 

On  the  mountain  just  named  parts  of  the  last  two 
summers  of  her  life,  1891  and  1892,  were  spent.  It 
was  there  that  the  news  of  Whittier's  death  came  to 

^  "On  the  Ledge,"  written  in  September,  1879,  celebrates  the 
beauty  of  this  "shelter  and  outlook." 

*  In  October,  1885,  she  writes  to  her  friend  Mrs.  Spalding,  "I  have 
had  my  'outing'  at  Bethlehem;  I  went  there  hardly  able  to  sit  up 
during  the  journey,  but  gained  strength  at  once,  and  am  well  now. 
...  I  stayed  there  more  than  four  weeks,  and  enjoyed  it  much.  Mr. 
Howells  and  family  were  at  the  next  house,  and  I  saw  them  several 
times." 

184 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

her.  She  was  not  long  to  survive  her  old  friend  and 
another  dear  friend,  Phillips  Brooks,  for  in  April, 
1893,  she  passed  away,  a  victim  of  heart  disease. 

Longfellow's  acquaintance  with  the  region  of  the 
White  Hills  began  early  and,  from  a  literary  stand- 
point, promisingly.  Born  in  a  city  from  which  they 
are  in  clear  weather  to  be  plainly  seen,  he  became 
interested  in  them  and  visited  them  as  a  young  man, 
but  this  acquaintance  was  not  kept  up.  After  he 
became  established  as  professor  at  Cambridge,  at 
any  rate,  he  preferred  the  seashore  to  the  Moun- 
tains, maintaining  for  many  years  a  summer  home 
at  Nahant.  Toward  the  close  of  his  life,  in  1880,  he 
made  a  visit  to  the  region,  staying  at  the  Stag  and 
Hounds  in  West  Campton.  While  there  a  journey 
was  made  to  Mad  River,  which  bore  fruit  poetically 
in  the  spirited  lyric  of  this  name,  one  of  his  last 
poems, ^  and  his  best  White  Mountain  poem. 

Slight  as  is,  taken  altogether,  his  association  with 
this  region,  it  has  nevertheless  a  few  points  of  inter- 
est worth  a  brief  chronicling. 

As  I  have  mentioned  when  dealing  with  the  battle 
of  Lovewell's  Pond,  that  fight  inspired  the  first 
printed  poem,  so  far  as  is  known,  of  the  youthful 
Longfellow.  The  four  stanzas,  with  their  echoes  of 
Moore  and  of  Scott,  appeared  over  the  signature 
"Henry"  in  the  Poet's  Corner  of  the  Portland 
Gazette,  November  17,  1820,  when  the  boy  was 
not  yet  fourteen  years  old.  Five  years  later  he  re- 
curred to  the  same  theme,  writing  an  ode  for  the 

*  It  was  written  in  January,  1882,  and  appeared  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  May  of  that  year. 

185 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

commemoration  at  Fryeburg  of  Lovewell's  fight. 
Another  poem  belonging  to  this  year  1825,  and 
now  relegated,  like  the  two  just  referred  to,  to 
an  appendix  of  "Juvenile  Poems"  is  "Jeckoyva,"  ^ 
which  owes  its  conception  to  the  Chocorua  legend. 
It  has  a  version  of  the  story  of  the  chief's  death  for 
its  subject. 

Yet  another  poem  written  in  this  his  senior  year 
at  Bowdoin  relates  to  the  Mountains.  This  is  the 
descriptive  and  didactic  poem,  "Sunrise  on  the 
Hills,"  which,  written  in  his  room  at  college,  em- 
bodies reminiscently  the  moving  sights  and  sounds 
of  nature  and  human  life  observed  on  the  occasion 
of  a  visit  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Kearsarge,  near 
North  Conway.  This  last  poem,  with  a  number  of 
others  written  during  his  college  life,  the  poet  re- 
tained in  a  group  of  "Earlier  Poems"  in  his  com- 
plete works.  Thus,  "Sunrise  on  the  Hills"  and 
"Mad  River,"  of  more  than  a  half-century  later, 
represent  the  entire  extent,  so  far  as  his  own  approval 
goes,  of  this  poet's  permanent  literary  association 
with  the  region. 

Bryant,  New  England's  greatest  nature  poet,  paid 
a  visit  to  the  White  Mountains  in  the  summer  of 
1847.  No  poems  ensued  from  this  his  first,  and 
apparently  also  his  last,  exploration  of  these  hills, 
which  he  had  before  seen  only  from  a  distance.  The 

^  Jeckoyva  is,  of  course,  a  variant  of  Chocorua.  "Mount  Jeck- 
oyva,"  says  the  poet  in  an  introductory  note,  "is  near  the  White 
Hills."  The  poem  appeared  in  the  United  States  Literary  Gazette  for 
August  I,  1825.  To  this  semi-monthly  periodical,  established  in  1824 
and  first  edited  by  Theophilus  Parsons,  afterwards  a  distinguished 
jurist,  Longfellow  was  a  regular  contributor. 

186 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

summer  trip  into  New  England,  of  which  this  excur- 
sion to  the  Mountains  was  a  part,  was  undertaken 
at  a  time  in  his  Hfe  when  the  editor  of  the  Evening 
Post  was  busily  engaged  in  the  political  discussions 
of  the  day  and  consequently  found  almost  no  time 
for  writing  verse.  This  circumstance  doubtless  ac- 
counts in  large  measure  for  the  failure  of  his  muse 
to  be  inspired  by  the  grand  and  beautiful  scenery 
amidst  which  he  found  himself  during  his  brief  so- 
journ in  the  White  Hills. 

He  approached  the  Mountains  by  way  of  Augusta, 
whither  he  had  come  from  Portland.  An  ascent  of 
Mount  Washington  and  a  stay  of  a  few  days  in  the 
Franconia  Notch  were  the  chief  features  of  his  visit. 

Fortunately,  his  impressions  of  the  Mountains 
have  been  preserved  for  us  by  his  biographer.  As 
the  passage  is  less  familiar  than  other  descriptive 
ones,  we  may  well  look  for  a  moment  with  the  poet's 
eye. 

The  scenery  of  these  mountains  has  not  been  sufficiently 
praised  [he  wrote].  But  for  the  glaciers,  but  for  the  peaks 
white  with  perpetual  snow,  it  would  be  scarcely  worth 
while  to  see  Switzerland  after  seeing  the  White  Moun- 
tains. The  depth  of  the  valleys,  the  steepness  of  the 
mountain-sides,  the  variety  of  aspect  shown  by  their 
summits,  the  deep  gulfs  of  forest  below,  seamed  with  the 
open  courses  of  rivers,  the  vast  extent  of  the  mountain 
region  seen  north  and  south  of  us,  gleaming  with  many 
lakes,  filled  me  with  surprise  and  astonishment.  Imagine 
the  forests  to  be  shorn  from  half  the  broad  declivities  — 
imagine  scattered  habitations  on  the  thick  green  turf  and 
foot-paths  leading  from  one  to  the  other,  and  herds  and 
flocks  browsing,  and  you  have  Switzerland  before  you. 
I  admit,  however,  that  these  accessories  add  to  the  va- 

187 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

riety  and  interest  of  the  landscape,  and  perhaps  heighten 
the  idea  of  its  vastness. 

I  have  been  told,  however,  that  the  White  Mountains 
in  autumn  present  an  aspect  more  glorious  than  even  the 
splendors  of  the  perpetual  ice  of  the  Alps.  All  this  mighty 
multitude  of  mountains,  rising  from  valleys  filled  with 
dense  forests,  have  then  put  on  their  hues  of  gold  and 
scarlet,  and,  seen  more  distinctly  on  account  of  their 
brightness  of  color,  seem  to  tower  higher  in  the  clear 
blue  of  the  sky.  At  that  season  of  the  year  they  are  little 
visited,  and  only  awaken  the  wonder  of  the  occasional 
traveller. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  ascend  Mount  Washington  to 
enjoy  the  finest  views.  Some  of  the  lower  peaks  offer 
grander  though  not  so  extensive  ones;  the  height  of  the 
main  summit  seems  to  diminish  the  size  of  the  objects 
beheld  from  it.  The  sense  of  solitude  and  immensity  is, 
however,  most  strongly  felt  on  that  great  cone,  over- 
looking all  the  rest,  and  formed  of  loose  rocks,  which 
seem  as  if  broken  into  fragments  by  the  power  which 
upheaved  these  ridges  from  the  depths  of  the  earth 
below. 

So  many  have  been  the  landscape  artists  who  have 
made  occasional  or  frequent  sojourns  for  longer  or 
shorter  periods  in  the  White  Mountains,  and  who 
have  plied  the  instruments  of  their  profession  to 
good  purpose  there,  that,  if  the  records  of  their  stays 
in  the  region  had  been  kept  and  a  catalogue  of  the 
pictures  that  were  the  outward  and  visible  signs 
of  their  communion  with  the  natural  beauty  and 
grandeur  of  their  surroundings  could  be  compiled,  a 
sizable  volume  would  be  required  to  contain  such 
material.  But  such  a  record,  which  might  be  styled 
the  "art  history"  of  the  White  Mountains,  cannot 
be  prepared  or,  at  any  rate,  can  be  only  very  in- 

i88 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

adequately  set  forth,  for  in  most  cases  the  artists* 
visits  to  this  region  were  but  episodes  in  busy 
careers.  In  many  cases,  indeed,  the  fact  of  such  per- 
sonal association  with  the  Mountains  is  borne  wit- 
ness to  solely  by  some  picture  which  reproduces  a 
scene  or  prospect  to  which  it  owed  its  inspiration, 
or,  at  most,  by  a  few  of  such  pictures.  Often,  again, 
the  only  accessible  record  of  such  association  that 
apparently  exists  is  the  mere  statement  that  such 
and  such  an  artist  frequented  a  particular  locality, 
set  down  incidentally  in  a  guide-book  or  in  a  maga- 
zine article  on  the  place. 

As  to  the  paintings  themselves,  they  are  so  thor- 
oughly and  so  widely  distributed  among  the  collec- 
tions of  individuals  and  of  the  smaller  public  gal- 
leries, few  being  in  the  great  galleries  of  the  country, 
that  the  preparation  of  a  respectable,  not  to  say  ade- 
quate, list  of  White  Mountain  paintings  would  be 
well-nigh  an  impossibility. 

A  chronicle  of  the  region  would,  however,  be  sadly 
deficient  without  some  brief  record,  or  at  least  men- 
tion, of  the  painters  who  have  done  so  much  to 
spread  abroad  a  knowledge  of  its  scenic  attractions. 
Furthermore,  so  intimate,  indeed,  was  the  associa- 
tion with  the  White  Mountains  of  the  earlier  Ameri- 
can landscape  artists,  who  constitute  our  first  really 
native  school,  that  they  are  sometimes  called  collec- 
tively the  "White  Mountain  School."  More  usually, 
however,  from  the  circumstance  that  so  much  of 
their  work  depicts  the  river  and  mountain  scenery  of 
eastern  New  York,  they  are  known  as  the  "Hudson 
River  School." 

189 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Such,  then,  being  the  importance  of  the  White 
Mountains  in  American  art,  and  such,  as  I  have  out- 
lined, being  the  difficulties,  especially  for  a  layman, 
in  acquiring  knowledge  of  the  artists*  personal  con- 
tact with  the  region  and  of  the  pictures  that  resulted 
therefrom,  I  approach  the  treatment  of  the  subject 
with  considerable  hesitation.  I  shall  have,  therefore, 
to  content  myself  with  setting  down  such  informa- 
tion, meager  as  it  is,  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather 
from  various  sources,  not  with  the  thought  that  what 
I  shall  present  has  any  pretense  to  completeness  or 
adequacy,  but  with  quite  the  contrary  mental  atti- 
tude toward  it,  namely,  one  of  apology  for  being 
unable  to  do  more  than  merely  touch  upon  some  of 
the  more  readily  accessible  bits  of  information  relat- 
ing to  the  subject. 

Mr.  Crawford,  in  his  "History,"  notes  the  visit  of 
a  painter  to  the  Mountains  as  early  as  July,  1824, 
"who  took  some  beautiful  sketches  of  the  hills  and 
likewise  of  the  Notch,"  but  we  are  not  informed  as 
to  his  name. 

Not  long  after  this  pioneer  visit  of  an  unnamed 
artist,  two  of  the  earliest  and  most  noted  of  American 
landscapists,  Thomas  Doughty  and  Thomas  Cole, 
found  their  way  thither,  and  they  have  had  many 
successors  in  discovering  and  depicting  with  the 
brush  the  beauties  of  the  region. 

Of  the  connection  with  the  Mountains  of  the 
latter,  who  made  his  summer  home  chiefly  in  the 
Catskills,  and  who  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  fathers 
of  the  Hudson  River  School,  we  are  fortunate  in 
having  some  record,  for  his  own  account  of  his  first 

190 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

visit  to  the  White  Mountains  has  been  preserved. 
It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1828,  that  with  a  friend, 
Henry  Cheeves  Pratt,  Cole  explored  the  region, 
making  a  tour  which  was  to  result  in  a  number  of 
striking  pictures.  Early  in  October,  they  climbed 
Chocorua,  which  early  became  and  has  remained  the 
favorite  mountain  of  the  painters,  as  it  has  been 
also  of  the  poets.  This  ascent  was  "both  perilous 
and  difficult"  on  account  of  the  windfalls,  consisting 
of  prostrate  tall  pines  and  gnarled  birches  heaped  to- 
gether in  wild  confusion.  But  the  artists  felt  them- 
selves amply  rewarded  by  the  "mighty  and  sublime" 
prospects  which  opened  on  their  vision.  "With  all 
its  beauty  the  scene  was,"  says  Cole,  "too  extended 
and  map-like  for  the  canvas."  "It  was  not  for 
sketches,"  he  continues,  "that  I  ascended  Chocorua, 
but  for  thoughts;  and  for  these  this  was  truly  the 
region." 

After  remaining  several  hours  on  the  peak,  they 
descended  to  the  village,  arriving  after  dark.  On 
October  6,  the  two  footed  it,  with  their  baggage 
on  their  backs,  through  the  Crawford  Notch.  Cole 
notes  that  the  distance  is  twelve  miles  and  that  there 
is  not  a  house  except  the  deserted  Willey  House,  of 
whose  location  he  says,  "It  is  impossible  to  give  a 
true  picture  of  this  desolate  and  savage  spot."  They 
paused,  however,  long  enough  to  make  some 
sketches  before  proceeding  up  the  gorge. 

Two  days  later.  Cole  went  alone,  Pratt  having 
left  him,  to  Franconia  "through  the  Breton  woods 
on  the  bank  of  the  Ammonoosuck."  From  Fran- 
conia he  walked  through  the  Franconia  Notch,  hav- 

191 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ing  set  off  with  the  expectation  of  the  coach's  over- 
taking him,  but  he  reached  the  southern  end  of  the 
Notch  some  time  before  it  arrived  there.  His  de- 
scription of  the  Notch  and  of  his  walli  is  well  worth 
giving,  particularly  noteworthy  being  his  account  of 
the  impression  the  Great  Stone  Face  made  upon 
him:  — 

There  is  nothing  of  the  desolate  grandeur  of  the  other 
Notch.  The  elements  do  not  seem  to  have  chosen  this  for 
a  battle-ground,  and  the  hoar  mountains  do  not  appear 
wrinkled  by  recent  convulsions.  One  of  the  two  lakes, 
you  here  meet  with,  is  presided  over  by  the  Old  Man  of 
the  Mountains  [sic],  as  the  people  about  here  call  it.  .  .  . 
The  perfect  repose  of  these  waters,  and  the  unbroken 
silence  reigning  through  the  whole  region,  made  the  scene 
peculiarly  impressive  and  sublime:  indeed,  there  was  an 
awfulness  in  the  deep  solitude,  pent  up  within  the  great 
precipices,  that  was  painful.  While  there  was  a  pleasure 
in  the  discovery,  a  childish  fear  came  over  me  that  drove 
me  away:  the  bold  and  horrid  features,  that  bent  their 
severe  expression  upon  me,  were  too  dreadful  to  look  upon 
in  my  loneliness:  I  could  not  feel  happy  in  their  com- 
munion, nor  take  them  to  my  heart  as  my  companions. 
...  In  spite  of  a  timid  excitement,  and  the  prospect  of  a 
shower,  I  sketched  several  trees  by  the  road-side.  In  the 
course  of  my  walk,  I  came  to  a  bark-covered  hut,  in  the 
midst  of  burnt  trees,  with  a  swarm  of  unwashed,  un- 
combed, but  healthy-looking  children,  who  ran  out  to 
stare  with  amazement  at  the  passing  stranger.  I  reached, 
at  length,  a  better-looking  abode,  where  the  horses  of  the 
coach  were  to  be  exchanged,  and  awaited  its  arrival. 
From  the  door  I  made  a  sketch  of  the  mountains,  to  the 
surprise  and  admiration  of  the  people  of  the  house,  who 
put  me  down  for  a  surveyor  making  a  map.  The  long- 
looked-for  coach  at  last  came  down,  and  gave  me  a 
pleasant  ride  into  Plymouth. 

192 


1 

W/M 

^ 

,g|a| 

^ 

J 

^Plt^' 

i 

^^/^hRm^^k 

^^K^gj 

..jJj^JE 

Sfe^V^nHHB 

%^Sfl^H 

IflHiBfiE 

ffyf^miBB^HB 

'•'f^BM 

^|r 

ioSHH 

--' 

^^9 

^ 

jW 

j£^ 

•  j?..^l 

gjiS^,^ 

1^ 

fli 

%^ 

#  ^'f  J' 

%% 

#lfl 

H 

|H| 

^% 

^r^grjl 

n 

ffll 

i 

^K^^i 

^rjBli 

«■ 

n 

^y^^ff 

1 

THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

The  following  winter,  Cole  produced  at  least  two 
spirited  pictures  of  Chocorua,  his  "Autumn  Scene — 
Corway  Peak"  and  his  "The  Death  of  Chocorua," 
the  former  of  which  is  now  in  the  gallery  of  the  New 
York  Historical  Society,  and  the  latter  of  which  be- 
came widely  known  through  the  "very  much  ad- 
mired" steel  engraving  of  it  by  George  W.  Hatch. 
During  this  winter  or  the  following  one,  he  painted 
his  "White  Mountains,"  purchased  for  the  Wads- 
worth  Athenaeum,  Hartford,  a  "View  near  Conway," 
exhibited  in  1830  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  London, 
and  a  "View  from  Mount  Washington." 

Cole  was  again  in  this  region,  we  learn  from  a 
letter,  for  several  weeks  in  the  summer  of  1839. 
Not  only  did  he  paint  actual  reproductions  of  White 
Mountain  scenes,  but  he  used  ideas  and  material 
acquired  here  in  pictures  that  were  not  localized 
views.  One  of  his  most  attractive  paintings,  "The 
Hunter's  Return,"  for  instance,  is  a  composition, 
but  one  noble  mountain  in  the  background  is  copied 
from  a  spur  of  the  White  Hills. 

Besides  being  a  painter  of  note,  Cole  not  seldom 
meditated  the  thankless  Muse,  and  the  White  Moun- 
tains were  a  source  of  inspiration  in  this  phase  of  his 
creative  activity.  During  the  year  1835,  he  found 
leisure  to  compose  a  dramatic  poem,  in  twelve  parts, 
called  "The  Spirits  of  the  Wilderness,"  the  scene  of 
which  is  laid  among  the  Mountains.  This  work, 
declared  by  his  biographer  to  be  "of  singular 
originality,  and  much  poetic  power  and  beauty," 
was,  in  the  spring  of  1837,  rewritten  and  "prepared 
in  a  measure  for  publication." 

193 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mr.  Pratt  also  recorded  his  impressions  of  his  trip 
through  the  Notch,  in  his  "View  of  the  White 
Mountains  after  the  Late  Slide,"  which  was  en- 
graved by  V.  Balch  for  The  Token,  in  1828. 

I  have  found  almost  no  record  of  Doughty's 
sketching  among  the  Mountains.  He  must,  how- 
ever, have  visited  the  Crawford  Notch  in  or  about 
the  early  thirties,  for  an  engraving  by  George  B. 
Ellis  of  a  drawing  by  him  of  "The  Silver  Cascade" 
was  published  in  The  Token  for  1835,  and  an  engrav- 
ing, by  F.  J.  Havell,  of  his  painting  of  the  same 
waterfall  appears  in  N.  P.  Willis's  "American 
Scenery." 

One  of  the  fathers  of  American  landscape  and 
leaders  of  the  Hudson  River  School,  A.  B.  Durand, 
who  was  also  one  of  the  original  members  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Design,  painted  a  number 
of  pleasing  White  Mountain  pictures.  In  1857, 
he  produced  for  Mr.  R.  L.  Stuart  the  large  work 
"White  Mountain  Scenery,  Franconia  Notch,"  now 
in  the  Stuart  Room  of  the  Galleries  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library.  It  is  recorded  that  the  purchaser 
was  so  pleased  with  the  picture  that  he  made  the 
amount  of  the  check  given  in  payment  for  it  larger 
than  he  had  agreed  to  pay.  In  the  following  year, 
Durand  sojourned  for  weeks  in  the  summer  in  North 
Conway  and  West  Campton.  "New  Hampshire 
Scenery"  was  painted  for  Mr.  A.  A.  Low  in  that 
year,  and  the  same  year  Mr.  Stuart  purchased  from 
the  artist  the  smaller  canvas  "Franconia,  White 
Mountains,"  also  now  in  the  New  York  Public  Li- 
brary. His  "On  the  Pemigewassett "  was  purchased 

194 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

by  a  citizen  of  Brooklyn.  In  1876,  he  painted 
"Sunset  on  Chocorua,"  which  was  purchased  by  a 
Hoboken  patron  of  art. 

Another  eminent  landscapist  who  has  connected 
himself  with  the  White  Mountains  is  George  Loring 
Brown,  known,  from  his  skill  as  a  copyist  of  Claude 
Lorraine,  as  the  "American  Claude."  After  a  long 
residence  abroad,  he  returned  in  i860  to  his  native 
land  and  devoted  himself  in  part  to  executing  views 
of  American  scenery.  One  of  his  places  of  sojourn 
while  sketching  in  the  Mountains  was,  on  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Sweetser,  Wilson's  farm,  two  miles 
from  Jackson,  where  noble  and  extended  views  are 
to  be  had.  His  most  noted  White  Mountain  picture, 
"The  Crown  of  New  England,"  was  painted  in  1861, 
and  gives  the  view  of  Mount  Washington  as  seen 
from  the  slope  below  the  road,  west  of  the  old  Mount 
Adams  House  at  Jefferson  Highlands.  It  was  pur- 
chased by  the  Prince  of  Wales  (Edward  VII)  during 
his  visit  to  the  United  States,  and  hangs  in  the 
gallery  of  Windsor  Castle. 

One  of  our  principal  sources  of  information  con- 
cerning artists  who  frequented  the  White  Moun- 
tains in  the  early  days  is  the  "Sixty  Years'  Memo- 
ries of  Art  and  Artists"  ^  of  Benjamin  Champney, 
who,  at  his  death  at  the  age  of  ninety  in  December, 
1907,  was  the  oldest  and  most  beloved  of  North 
Conway's  summer  residents  and  who  was  the  pio- 
neer among  the  artists  who  have  made  the  gran- 
deur and  beauty  of  that  region's  scenery  known. 

Mr.  Champney  first  visited  his  future  summer 

*  Published  in  1900  at  Woburn,  Massachusetts,  his  winter  home. 

195 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

home  in  1838,  in  company  with  "a  young  artist 
friend,"  the  imaginations  of  the  two  students  having 
been  so  "inflamed"  by  the  study  of  a  series  of  illus- 
trations drawn  by  an  English  artist,  W.  H.  Bartlett, 
and  engraved  in  London  for  N.  P.  Willis's  "Ameri- 
can Scenery,"  published  there  in  1838-39,  that  they 
devoted  their  first  sketching  trip  to  a  study  of  the 
same  scenery. 

After  some  years  of  study  in  Europe,  beginning 
in  1 84 1,  where  he  became  intimate  with  other  art 
students  who  were  to  associate  themselves  in  later 
years  with  White  Mountain  scenes,  and  among 
whom  were  A.  B.  Durand,  J.  W.  Casilear,  and  J.  F. 
Kensett,  Mr.  Champney  returned  to  America  to 
practice  his  profession  of  landscape  artist.  As  the 
result  of  an  agreement  with  Kensett  to  go  on  a 
sketching  trip  to  the  White  Mountains,  Champney 
and  Kensett  went  in  the  summer  of  1850  to  Frye- 
burg.  Casilear,  having  been  sent  for  to  join  them, 
did  so,  and  the  three  friends  for  six  weeks  "reveled 
in  the  beauty"  of  the  Saco  Valley.  Having  made  a 
reconnaissance  of  North  Conway,  they  decided  to 
go  there  at  once.  They  had  interviewed  Landlord 
Thompson,  of  Kearsarge  Tavern,  who  had  agreed  to 
take  them  in  "for  the  magnificent  sum  of  $3.50  per 
week  with  the  choice  of  the  best  rooms  in  the 
house,"  it  being  then  the  middle  of  August  and  there 
being  not  a  guest  in  town.  "You  won't  like  me," 
said  Mr.  Thompson,  as  reported  by  Champney. 
"I'm  a  kind  of  crooked  fellow,  and  you  won't  like 
me,  but  you  can  come  and  try  it."  They  did  like  it, 
being  made  to  feel  at  home  and  being  supplied  with 

196 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

a  generous  table  of  good  old-fashioned  cooking,  and 
the  landlord  they  liked  also  as  they  got  acquainted 
with  him,  ever  ready  as  he  was  to  enter  into  any 
project  for  exploring  the  country  and  hunting  out 
new  beauties.  Delighted  with  the  surrounding 
scenery,  they  lingered  in  North  Conway  two  months. 
Late  in  the  season  they  painted  Mount  Washington, 
white  with  snow,  from  Sunset  Hill.  After  his  return 
to  New  York,  Kensett  made  a  large  painting  of  this 
view,  "The  White  Mountains  and  Valley  of  the 
Saco,  from  Sunset  Hill,  North  Conway,"  which  be- 
came very  widely  known,  especially  through  an  en- 
graving made  of  it  by  James  Smillie. 

About  the  middle  of  October,  Champney  and  the 
others  left  North  Conway,  making  a  trip  on  foot 
through  the  Crawford  Notch  and  on  to  Franconia, 
sketching  as  they  went  and  being  heartily  wel- 
comed and  urged  to  come  again  another  year  by  the 
landlords  of  the  two  or  three  then  deserted  Moun- 
tain houses. 

Champney  returned  the  next  summer  with  a  re- 
inforcement of  two  Boston  artists,  Alfred  Ordway 
and  B.  G.  Stone,  and  found  a  New  York  contin- 
gent, headed  by  Casilear,  already  established  at  the 
Kearsarge  House.  The  other  New  Yorkers  were 
David  Johnson,^  John  Williamson, ^  and  a  nephew  of 
A.  B.  Durand,  and  they  "made  a  jolly  crowd,"  says 
Champney. 

Again,  in   1852,   Champney  returned  to  North 

^  Johnson  painted  a  picture  of  "Echo  Lake"  (1867),  and  exhibited 
at  the  Centennial  a  view  of  the  "Old  Man  of  the  Mountain." 

2  One  of  the  most  notable  pictures  of  Williamson,  who  was  of 
Scottish  birth,  is  "The  Summit  of  Chocorua  by  Twilight." 

197 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Conway,  this  time  bringing  with  him  Hamilton 
Wilde.  Other  artists  had  preceded  them  thither,  and 
the  little  coterie  nearly  filled  the  dining-table  in 
Thompson's  old  house.  Every  year  brought  fresh 
visitors  to  the  hamlet,  as  news  of  its  attractions 
spread,  until  in  1853  and  1854  the  meadows  were 
dotted  with  great  numbers  of  white  umbrellas. 
Samuel  Colman,^  a  pupil  of  Durand,  R.  W.  Hub- 
bard,2  Sandford  R.  GifTord,^  and  A.  D.  Shattuck,^  of 
New  York,  settled  themselves  at  an  old  farmhouse 
situated  near  the  Moat  Mountain  House  and  later 
remodeled  and  occupied  by  Mr.  George  Wolcott. 

After  his  wedding  tour  in  1853,  Champney 
brought  his  bride  to  the  Kearsarge  House.  Wilde, 
W.  A.  Gay,^  and  other  artists  were  there,  and  the 
little  hostelry  was  crowded  and  more  popular  than 
ever.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  Champney  bought 
Lewis  Eastman's  old-fashioned  house  in  the  lower 
part  of  the  valley,  and  in  the  summer  of  1854  the 
artist  was  domiciled  in  it,  verandas  and  dormer  win- 
dows being  added  and  new  rooms  being  finished  the 
next  year.  The  carpenter-shop  on  the  place  was 
transformed  into  a  spacious  studio  with  a  top  light. 

*  Colman's  "  Conway  Valley  "  was  bought  by  a  citizen  of  Brooklyn. 

*  Hubbard  was  a  pupil  of  Professor  Morse  and  of  Daniel  Hunting- 
ton.  He  painted  "High  Peak  —  North  Conway,"  in  1871. 

*  "  His  painting  of  Echo  Lake  is  a  very  successful  attempt  to 
combine  cloud,  water,  forest,  and  mountain  scenery  in  a  harmonious 
whole."  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin  in  Our  American  Artists,  series  i.  1879. 

*  Shattuck,  a  native  of  New  Hampshire  and  a  brother-in-law  of 
Colman,  painted  an  "Autumnal  View  of  the  Androscoggin,  with  the 
White  Mountains  in  the  Distance,"  and  a  view  of  Mount  Chocorua. 

'  Gay,  a  pupil  of  Robert  W.  Weir  and  of  Tryon,  painted  various 
pictures  having  to  do  with  this  region,  including  a  "Mount  Wash- 
ington" in  the  Boston  Athenaeum. 

198 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

This  building,  which  was  to  be  so  long  occupied  by 
its  owner  for  artistic  uses,  was  formally  dedicated  to 
such  purposes  in  1855  by  a  reunion  of  Champney's 
friends  and  a  speech  by  Deacon  Greeley,  of  Boston. 
Kensett,^  who  was  Champney's  most  intimate  friend, 
visited  him  just  as  the  studio  was  completed,  and 
painted,  Champney  thinks,  the  first  pictures  made 
there. 

J.  W.  Casilear  ^  has  been  already  mentioned  as 
an  associate  of  Champney  and  Kensett  at  North 
Conway  in  the  early  days.  Together  these  friends 
explored  and  sketched  along  Artists*  Brook,  whose 
laughing,  bubbling  waters,  picturesque  nooks,  and 
transparent  pools  make  it  one  of  North  Conway's 

*  John  Frederick  Kensett  was  born  in  1818  at  Cheshire,  Connecti- 
cut, and  died  in  1872.  He  was  one  of  the  shining  lights  of  the  so- 
called  "Hudson  River  School"  and  painted  many  White  Mountain 
pictures,  among  them  "Mount  Washington,  from  North  Conway" 
(1850);  "Sketch  of  Mount  Washington  "  (1851),  now  in  the  Cor- 
coran Gallery  of  Art,  Washington;  "Franconia  Mountains"  (1853); 
"White  Mountain  Scenery"  (1859),  now  in  the  New  York  Public 
Library;  "Glimpse  of  the  White  Mountains"  (1867);  and  "New 
Hampshire  Scenery,"  an  elaborate  view  of  the  White  Mountains,, 
which  belongs  to  the  Century  Club,  New  York.  Champney  writes  of 
him:  "Kensett  was  more  to  me  than  any  other  [of  his  school],  for  I 
had  known  him  so  intimately,  and  had  struggled  with  him  through 
want  and  difficulties  abroad.  .  .  .  His  brilliant  studies  brought  back 
from  the  Catskills  and  White  Mountains  were  marvels  of  clever 
handling  and  color.  No  one  seemed  able  to  give  the  sparkle  of  sun- 
light through  the  depths  of  the  forest,  touching  on  mossy  rocks  and 
shaggy  tree-trunks,  so  well  as  he. ...  I  know  that  to-day  his  pictures 
are  considered  old-fashioned,  that  they  are  wanting  in  solidity  and 
broad  massing  of  forms,  but  that  does  not  take  away  from  them  the 
lovely  feeling  of  color  and  crispy  touch  they  possess." 

*  His  "Scene  in  New  Hampshire "  was  painted  in  1877.  Champney 
thus  characterizes  his  work:  "His  pictures  are  more  delicate  and  re- 
fined than  either  Cole's  or  Durand's,  but  not  so  vigorous.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  poetic  pastoral  charm  in  all  his  work,  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and 
possessing  beautiful  qualities."  He  also  painted  Chocorua. 

199 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

chief  charms.  The  most  noted  of  American  land- 
scapists,  George  Inness,  was  also  for  a  time  a  fre- 
quenter of  North  Conway,  using  as  a  studio  "the 
ugly  little  building,"  once  the  academy,  which  was 
situated  near  the  Kearsarge  House  and  which  was 
torn  down  in  1887.  Inness  also  sketched  in  the  West 
Ossipee  region,  having  been,  as  has  been  noted,  a 
guest  at  one  of  the  predecessors  of  Whittier's  favor- 
ite haunt,  the  Bearcamp  River  House. 

Thomas  Hill,  famous  as  a  painter  of  the  Sierras 
and  the  Yosemite,  during  his  second  residence  in 
New  England,  in  the  last  of  the  sixties,  was  one  of 
the  artist-colony  at  North  Conway  and  painted  at 
this  period  the  thrilling  picture  ^  called  "White 
Mountain  Notch — Morning  after  the  Willey  Slide," 
an  engraving  of  which  forms  the  frontispiece  of 
Thompson's  revised  edition  of  "  Willey's  Incidents." 

An  artist  connected  in  a  melancholy  way  with 
North  Conway  is  James  A.  Suydam,  whadied  there 
September  15,  1865.  In  company  with  Sandford  R. 
Gifford  he  was  about  to  make  a  sketching  tour  of 
the  White  Hills,  whence  they  were  to  go  to  Lake 
George.  Suydam,  not  feeling  very  well,  decided  to 

^  Benjamin  thus  describes  it:  "Mr.  Hill  has  laid  the  scene  of  this 
large  and  powerful  painting  there  [in  the  Notch  at  the  Willey  House 
location].  The  top  of  the  mountain  is  enveloped  in  a  dense  canopy  of 
dun,  lowering  clouds,  and  a  shadow  like  the  threat  of  doom  broods 
over  the  fated  valley.  It  is  long  years  since  I  saw  that  painting, 
but  the  impression  it  left  upon  me  I  am  sure  could  only  have  been 
made  by  a  work  of  real  power,  inspired  by  genuine  imagination."  Of 
his  facility,  Champney  thus  writes:  "  In  one  afternoon  of  three  hours 
in  the  White  Mountain  forests,  I  have  seen  him  produce  a  study, 
12  X  20  in  size,  full  of  details  and  brilliant  light.  There  is  his  greatest 
strength,  and  his  White  Mountain  wood  studies  have  not  been 
excelled." 

200 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

rest  at  North  Conway  while  his  companion  went  into 
the  Mountains  to  study.  Gifford  rejoined  his  friend 
in  time  to  be  with  him  in  his  last  hours.  In  Suydam's 
death  "American  art  met,"  says  Daniel  Huntington, 
"with  more  than  a  common  loss."  His  only  White 
Mountain  picture,  "Conway  Meadows,"  was  pur- 
chased by  a  citizen  of  Washington. 

Mention  of  Huntington  reminds  one  that  this 
eminent  portrait  painter  also  painted  Mountain 
landscapes.  His  "  Chocorua  Peak,  New  Hampshire," 
dating  from  i860,  was  purchased  in  1861  by  Mrs. 
R.  L.  Stuart,  of  New  York,  and  now  hangs  in  the 
Stuart  Room  of  the  New  York  Public  Library. 

The  late  Homer  Martin  also  visited  and  painted 
in  the  Mountains  in  his  early  days.  His  "Madison 
and  Adams  from  Randolph  Hill,"  depicting  "two 
snow-capped  mountains  rising  into  a  cold  cloudy 
sky,"  was  apparently  produced  in  1862.  It  was 
given  in  I'Sgi  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art. 

Mr.  Champney,  who  passed  so  many  summers 
with  keen  delight  in  North  Conway,  and  who  has 
described  its  beauties  so  enthusiastically,  says  that 
at  one  time  the  village  and  the  neighborhood  of 
Artists'  Brook  were  almost  as  famous  as  Barbizon 
and  Fontainebleau  after  Millet,  Rousseau,  and 
Diaz  had  set  the  fashion.  Artists  of  repute  from  all 
sections  of  the  country  came,  but,  he  remarks, 
"Fashions  change,  and  fads  and  whims  come  along 
to  turn  the  current  to  the  seashore,  where  the  great- 
est simplicity  of  form  prevails."  His  own  studio  was 
the  resort  of  many  from  this  country  and  even  from 

20I 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

foreign  lands.  Many  of  his  Mountain  canvases  are 
owned  in  and  around  Boston. 

Albert  Bierstadt,  of  Rocky  Mountain  fame,  was  a 
visitor  here  both  in  his  earlier  and  his  later  years. ^ 
His  "On  the  Saco,  New  Hampshire,"  was  painted 
in  1886.  S.  L.  Gerry  was  another  frequenter  of  the 
region.  His  best-known  Mountain  picture  is  his 
"The  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain." 

Jackson,  as  has  been  said,  was  early  discovered  by 
artists  as  a  center  of  rare  landscape  beauties.  Board- 
man,  Geary,  Clark,  Hoit,  and  Brackett  are  named 
as  the  pioneers  there,  the  first  of  whom  came,  as  has 
been  previously  noted,  as  early  as  1847.  Chester 
Harding,  the  portrait  painter,  to  whom  we  owe  the 
likeness  of  Abel  Crawford,  was  also  a  visitor  there. 
G.  S.  Merrill  long  occupied  as  a  studio  a  deserted 
Free- Will  Baptist  church  at  the  angle  formed  by  the 
junction  of  the  Dundee  Road  with  the  Black  Moun- 
tain Road.  In  more  recent  times  artists  in  great 
numbers  have  summered  in  Jackson.  One  who 
helped  to  a  great  degree  to  make  known  the  beauties 
and  wonders  of  the  White  Hills,  the  late  Frank  H. 
Shapleigh,  of  Boston,  may  be  mentioned.  For 
fifteen  years,  beginning  in  1877,  he  had  a  studio  at 
the  Crawford  House.  Later,  he  built  the  quaint  and 
otherwise  attractive  cottage,  "Maple  Knoll,"  be- 
hind the  Jackson  Falls  House.  Among  his  pictures 
are  views  of  "The  Northern  Peaks"  and  "Mount 
Washington." 

^  In  1869,  according  to  Benjamin  Osgood,  the  guide,  Bierstadt  was 
a  guest  at  the  Glen  House,  and  it  was  he  who  found  Landlord 
Thompson's  body. 

202 


THE  POETS  AND  PAINTERS 

Campton  and  West  Campton  have  attracted 
many  artists.  Among  those  who  frequented  this 
district  in  the  early  days  are  included  Durand,  Gay, 
Gerry,  T.  Addison  Richards,  Griggs,  Pone,  and 
Williams. 

Church's  Falls,  on  Sabba-Day  Brook  in  Albany, 
perpetuate  the  association  of  F.  E.  Church,  who 
painted  them,  with  the  Mountain  region.  The 
Scottish-American  artist  William  Hart  was  another 
who  has  depicted  Chocorua,  while  H.  B.  Brown,  of 
Portland,  noted  especially  for  his  spirited  reproduc- 
tions of  coast  scenery,  painted  a  striking  view  of  the 
Crawford  Notch,  looking  up,  which  is  familiar  from 
its  reproduction  in  photogravure. 

Another  artist  who  deserves  a  mention  in  this 
fragmentary  chronicle  of  White  Mountain  art  is 
Godfrey  N.  Frankenstein,  who  was  of  German  birth 
and  who  died  in  Springfield,  Ohio,  in  1873.  He 
painted  many  sketches  of  the  scenery  of  this  region, 
two  of  which,  "Mount  Washington,  over  Tucker- 
man's  Ravine"  and  "The  Notch  of  the  White 
Mountains  from  Mount  Crawford,"  are  litho- 
graphed in  Oakes's  "White  Mountain  Scenery."  In 
his  honor  his  friend.  Dr.  Bemis,  gave  his  name  to 
the  imposing  cliff  just  above  Bemis  Station  on  the 
Maine  Central  Railroad. 


IX 

THE  LATER  SCIENTIFIC   EXPLORATIONS  OF  THE 
MOUNTAINS 

Accounts  have  been  given  in  preceding  chapters 
of  the  visits  to  the  Mountains  of  some  of  the  eminent 
scientific  men  of  the  early  days  and  mention  has  been 
made  of  the  results  of  their  explorations.  During 
later  years,  this  region,  so  accessible  to  the  earlier 
settled  part  of  the  country  and  possessing  so  many 
features  of  interest  from  the  standpoint  of  science, 
has,  naturally,  been  the  theater  for  field  work  of  a 
host  of  scientists  and  naturalists.  Space  can  be  taken 
to  record  the  names  and  explorations  of  only  the 
more  noted  of  such  observers  and  to  summarize  the 
activities  and  results  of  some  of  the  more  system- 
atic examinations  of  the  natural  phenomena  of  the 
region. 

A  scientific  event  of  the  first  years  of  the  fifth 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which  concerned 
the  Mountains  to  a  considerable  extent,  was  the 
first  geological  survey  of  New  Hampshire.  An  in- 
ventory of  the  natural  resources  of  the  State,  an 
account  of  which  sort  was  what  passed  at  that  period 
for  a  geological  survey,  had  been  recommended  for 
New  Hampshire  by  several  governors,  but  without 
success  until  Governor  John  Page  in  1839  advocated 
such  an  undertaking  and  the  legislature  of  that  year 
passed  an  act  providing  for  it. 

204 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

Acting  under  the  authorization  of  the  legislature, 
Governor  Page  appointed,  as  State  Geologist  to  con- 
duct the  work.  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  of  Boston, 
a  chemist  and  mineralogist  of  repute,  who  became 
world-famous  later  in  connection  with  the  discovery 
of  anaesthesia. 

An  annual  appropriation  of  two  thousand  dollars 
for  three  years  was  authorized  in  the  act  for  carrying 
out  its  provisions ;  but,  the  laboratory  work  proving 
more  difficult  and  extensive  than  was  anticipated, 
additional  appropriations  were  necessary  from  time 
to  time,  bringing  the  total  cost  of  the  Survey  up  to 
nine  thousand  dollars,  exclusive  of  the  expense  of 
publishing  the  reports. 

Dr.  Jackson,  although  he  had  already  conducted 
similar  surveys  of  Nova  Scotia  and  Rhode  Island, 
was  one  of  the  most  primitive  of  State  surveyors  in 
his  methods.  Trained  abroad  under  Elie  de  Beau- 
mont, he  had  adopted  that  scientist's  erroneous 
theories  of  mountain-building,  which  rendered  his 
geological  work  on  the  Mountain  region  largely 
futile.  Moreover,  when  we  learn  that  Dr.  Jackson 
devoted  but  very  little  of  his  own  time  to  the  field 
work  and  that  it  was  carried  on  for  the  most  part  by 
untrained  and  unpaid  assistants,  we  are  not  sur- 
prised to  find  that  the  Survey  accomplished  so  little 
of  real  scientific  value. 

The  summers  of  three  years,  beginning  with  1840, 
were  occupied  in  collecting  minerals  and  soils,  which 
were  analyzed  in  Dr.  Jackson's  laboratory  in  Bos- 
ton during  the  winters  following.  Much  of  this  field 
work  was  done  in  the  White  Mountains. 

205 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

This  Survey,  however,  possesses  for  us  another 
than  its  scientific  interest,  and  that  lies  in  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  assistants.  In  the  summer  of  the  first 
year,  M.  B.  Williams  and  Josiah  Dwight  Whitney, 
later  the  famous  geologist  and  head  of  the  Califor- 
nia State  Survey,  were  employed  in  the  field  work, 
which  closed  for  that  year  with  a  tour  in  August  to 
the  White  Mountains. 

Williams  was  again  in  the  field  the  following 
summer.  Whitney,  who  found  the  work  most  con- 
genial, and  who,  then  undecided  as  to  his  future 
career,  was  counseled  by  his  chief  to  adopt  the 
latter's  profession,  gained  in  the  winter  of  1840-41 
his  first  professional  success,  an  appointment  to  the 
Survey  as  a  paid  assistant.  His  duties  were  to  assist 
Dr.  Jackson  in  the  latter's  laboratory  in  Boston  in 
the  analyses  of  the  minerals  collected  the  preceding 
summer.  This  work  lasted  only  through  the  winter, 
and  in  the  spring  the  future  geologist  ended  his  con- 
nection with  the  Survey.  In  the  published  report  of 
the  State  Geologist,  portions  of  which  were  Whit- 
ney's and  Williams's  own  composition,  they  state 
that  they  two  were  the  first  of  mankind  to  reach  the 
top  of  Mount  Washington  on  horseback.^  The  report 
also  contains  seven  full-paged  lithographed  plates  of 
New  Hampshire  scenery  from  drawings  by  Whitney,^ 
a  number  of  which  were  of  White  Mountain  views. 

*  As  Abel  Crawford  is  affirmed  by  his  son,  Ethan,  to  be  "the  first 
man  that  ever  rode  a  horse  on  the  top  of  Mount  Washington,"  he 
was  evidently  the  guide  on  this  occasion.  Dr.  Jackson  was  also  of  the 
party. 

-  I  am  indebted  for  information  as  to  Whitney's  connection  with 
the  Survey  to  Edwin  Tenney  Brewster's  Life  and  Letters  oj  Josiah 
Dwight  Whitney  (1909). 

206 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

In  1841,  Edward  Everett  Hale  was,  at  the  instance 
of  his  friend,  William  F.  Channing,  who  had  become 
an  assistant  on  the  Survey,  appointed  a  junior 
member  of  it,  and  the  two  were  in  the  field  that 
summer,  as  was  Channing  also  the  following  year. 
In  September,  Hale  and  Channing  made  a  trip  up 
the  South  Branch  of  Israel's  River,  in  search  of  large 
sheets  of  mica  alleged  to  have  been  found  there. 
They  continued  up  over  one  or  more  of  the  Northern 
Peaks  and  Washington  and  returned  the  next  day 
to  the  old  Fabyan  tavern.  Dr.  Hale  thus  recalls  his 
first  ascent  of  Mount  Washington,  in  "Tarry  at 
Home  Travels":  "The  first  time  I  stood  at  the  Tip- 
Top  House  ^  was  at  ten  o'clock  at  night  in  the  first 
week  of  September,  1841,  with  a  crowbar  in  my  hand 
as  I  pressed  upon  the  door.  It  was  after  a  tramp 
which  had  lasted  seventeen  hours  and  had  taken  us 
over  Jefferson  and  through  one  or  two  thunder- 
storms." 

The  advance  in  geological  and  mineralogical 
knowledge  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  improvement  in  field  and  laboratory 
methods  in  these  sciences  having  rendered  the  results 
of  the  earlier  geological  survey  largely  obsolete,  the 
State  authorities  in  the  sixties  determined  upon 
undertaking  a  more  thoroughgoing  investigation  of 
the  physical  conditions  and  resources  of  the  State. 
They  were  further  urged  to  this  action  by  a  number 
of  considerations  which  arose  from  the  character  of 
the  early  Survey.  The  first  inventory  of  the  natural 
resources  of  New  Hampshire,  made  under  the  direc- 
^  See  pp.  229, 230. 
207 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

tion  of  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  was  conducted,  as 
has  been  intimated,  in  a  very  primitive  manner,  and 
the  barometrical  and  other  observations  were  incom- 
plete. More  attention  was  paid  to  minerals  and 
their  localities  and  to  soils  as  affecting  agriculture 
than  to  structural  geology,  and  so  the  reports  deal 
largely  with  mineralogical,  metallurgical,  and  eco- 
nomic descriptions  and  statements.  Moreover,  the 
State  authorities  did  not  think  it  important  to  color 
the  geological  map  attached  to  the  final  report, 
which  last  fact  makes  it  hard  to  understand  many 
things  that  otherwise  might  have  been  evident. 

From  the  reports  and  map,  therefore,  it  is  difficult 
to  deduce  any  very  satisfactory  notions  of  geological 
structure.  Again,  Dr.  Jackson,  as  has  been  said,  held 
erroneous  theories  as  to  mountain-formation,  which 
invalidated  his  conclusions  as  to  the  geological 
structure  of  the  State.  Furthermore,  the  illustrative 
collection  of  rocks  and  minerals  deposited  by  Dr. 
Jackson  at  Concord  had  been  destroyed  by  fire. 

A  new  survey  was,  on  all  these  accounts,  a  pressing 
need.  Accordingly,  at  the  June  session  of  the  legis- 
lature of  New  Hampshire  in  1868,  a  bill  was  passed 
to  provide  for  the  geological  and  mineralogical  sur- 
vey of  the  State,  which  bill  received  the  approval  of 
Governor  Harriman  on  July  3. 

The  appointment  as  State  Geologist  of  C.  H. 
Hitchcock,  son  and  pupil  of  the  eminent  Professor 
and  President  Edward  Hitchcock,^  of  Amherst  Col- 

*  In  1841,  President  Hitchcock  ascended  Mount  Washington  from 
the  old  Notch  House,  and  wrote  about  the  rocks  in  a  paper  upon 
glacio-aqueous  action  in  North  America. 

208 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

lege,  and  himself  professor  of  geology  at  Dartmouth 
College,  was  a  natural  and  fitting  one.  Professor 
Hitchcock's  character,  equipment,  and  experience  — 
he  had  been  Assistant  State  Geologist  of  Vermont 
and  State  Geologist  of  Maine  —  insured  an  accurate, 
comprehensive,  and  otherwise  adequate  prosecution 
of  the  work. 

While  it  is  not  the  province  of  this  narrative  to 
give  a  history  of  the  Survey,  still  so  much  of  its 
activity  related  to  and  centered  about  the  White 
Mountains  that  a  summary  of  the  explorations  in 
that  region  must  necessarily  embody  an  outline 
of  a  large  part  of  the  entire  field  work. 

The  day,  September  9,  1868,  after  he  received 
notice  of  his  appointment.  Professor  Hitchcock, 
although  the  season  was  almost  too  late  to  com- 
mence work,  started  for  Lisbon  to  begin  the  exami- 
nation of  the  Ammonoosuc  gold  field.  There  was 
time,  naturally,  for  little  more  than  a  reconnais- 
sance of  that  district  for  the  purpose  of  laying  out 
future  work. 

J.  H.  Huntington,  of  Hanover,  and  George  L. 
Vose,  of  Paris,  Maine,  having  been  appointed  as- 
sistant geologists,  the  former  was  made  principal 
assistant,  while  to  Mr.  Vose  was  assigned  the  White 
Mountain  region  as  his  special  subject  or  definite 
area  to  investigate.  He  was  expected  to  pay  espe- 
cial attention  to  the  topography,  and,  in  addition 
to  the  delineation  of  the  geological  structure,  to 
furnish  the  most  accurate  map  of  the  region  ever 
drawn. 

Field  work  for  1869  was  begun  in  May  on  the 
209 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Ammonoosuc  gold  field,  which  received  more  at- 
tention than  any  other  portion  of  the  territory  and 
concerning  which  a  comprehensive  report,  with  a 
colored  geological  map  of  the  most  interesting  part 
of  the  area,  was  printed  in  pamphlet  form.  This 
map,  with  its  accompanying  descriptions,  is  of  his- 
torical importance  as  containing  the  germ  of  the 
geologists'  notions  and  opinions  as  to  the  structure 
of  all  New  England. 

Mr.  Vose  spent  a  few  weeks  of  this  year  among 
the  White  Mountains,  taking  a  large  number  of 
observations  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  exact 
position  of  many  of  the  high  peaks  and  also  mak- 
ing observations  upon  the  geology  of  the, region. 
By  this  means  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  Passa- 
conaway,  the  northern  Kearsarge,  Whiteface,  and 
Chocorua  were  ascertained.  From  Kearsarge  and 
Chocorua,  he  drew  accurate  sketches  of  all  the 
mountains  as  seen  along  the  New  Hampshire  hori- 
zon, using  a  six-inch  theodolite  for  the  purpose. 
In  August  he  resigned  his  position  on  the  Survey. 

During  the  winter  of  1869-70,  as  narrated  in  full 
in  another  place,  Mr.  Huntington  carried  out,  with 
Mr.  A.  F.  Clough,  the  winter  occupation  of  Moosi- 
lauke.  In  May,  1870,  Mr.  Huntington  made  a  trip 
on  foot  to  determine  the  relative  altitude  of  the 
passes  along  the  principal  White  Mountain  Range 
between  the  Crawford  House  and  Waterville,  an 
expedition  which  was  attended  with  considerable 
labor  owing  to  the  fact  that  much  snow  was  still 
remaining. 

By  this  time  in  the  progress  of  the  Survey,  the 
210 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

geologists  had  begun  to  understand  the  structure  of 
the  White  Mountains,  "which  knowledge  proved 
to  be  the  key  to  that  of  the  rest  of  the  State."  This 
field  of  research  having  been  left  vacant  by  the 
resignation  aforesaid,  the  State  Geologist  himself 
assumed  the  duty  of  exploring  the  territory. 

The  area  for  investigation  for  1870  included  es- 
pecially the  region,  about  thirty  miles  long  and 
twelve  or  fifteen  wide,  bounded  by  Israel's,  Moose, 
Peabody,  Ellis,  and  Saco  Rivers.  The  laboriousness 
of  the  work  of  exploration  is  plainly  indicated  when 
it  is  stated  that  the  area  was  nearly  an  unbroken 
forest,  traversed  only  by  bridle  paths  and  roads 
used  for  the  ascent  of  Mount  Washington  in  summer. 
The  plan  of  campaign  pursued  was  to  visit  system- 
atically with  the  hammer  and  barometer  every  one 
of  the  numerous  peaks  and  valleys  which  make  up 
this  tract.  So  numerous  were  the  localities  requir- 
ing visitation  that  six  members  of  the  class  of  1871 
of  Dartmouth  College  were  invited  to  assist.  J.  H. 
Huntington,  Dr.  Nathan  Barrows,  and  E.  Hitch- 
cock, Jr.,  also  furnished  aid  in  this  work.  The  Sur- 
vey party  lived  among  the  mountains,  in  extempore 
camps,  until  the  explorations  and  observations  had 
been  made.  Animated  by  the  desire  to  discover  the 
real  geological  structure  of  the  region,  the  members 
of  the  party  did  not  rest  until  all  the  nearly  inacces- 
sible peaks  and  ravines  had  been  explored.  Often  the 
exertion  necessary  to  procure  a  single  specimen  was 
greater  than  that  required  to  pass  over  Mount  Wash- 
ington on  foot  by  the  paths,  involving,  as  it  did, 
traveling  through  primeval  forest,  full  of  under- 

211 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

brush,  fallen  trees,  and  other  obstacles.  Many  of 
the  results  of  the  exploring  work  were  thus.  Pro- 
fessor Hitchcock  remarks,  "acquired  only  through 
infinite  toil." 

The  first  result  of  this  laborious  and  painstaking 
survey  of  the  Mountain  region  was  the  construc- 
tion by  the  State  Geologist  of  a  physical  model  ^  of 
the  area.  This  is  about  five  feet  in  length,  and  is 
on  the  scale  of  one  hundred  and  forty  rods  to  the 
inch  horizontally,  and  of  one  thousand  feet  to  three 
fourths  of  an  inch  vertically. 

The  White  Mountain  explorations  of  1871  ^  in- 
cluded a  thorough  examination  of  the  area  lying 
between  the  Saco  and  Pemigewasset  Rivers  and 
north  of  Sandwich.  This  work,  which  continued 
uninterruptedly  for  a  month  beginning  just  after 
the  middle  of  June,  was  carried  on  with  the  assist- 
ance of  eleven  members  of  the  graduating  class  of 
Dartmouth  College,  who  proffered  their  services 
and  who  labored  cheerfully  and  effectively,  all 
contributing  something  of  value.  Two  of  them  dis- 
covered a  new  lake  (Haystack  Lake)  on  the  north- 
west side  of  Mount  Garfield  (then  called  "The  Hay- 
stack") ;  two  others  found  a  still  larger  one  upon  the 

^  After  this  had  been  exhibited  in  public,  it  was  learned  that  a 
plaster  model  of  the  White  Mountains  had  been  fashioned  several 
years  before  by  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  formerly  president  of  Har- 
vard College.  Dr.  Hill's  model  was  upon  a  much  smaller  scale,  about 
eighteen  inches  square,  and  it  showed  all  the  ridges  and  valleys  from 
Gorham  to  Conway  and  Littleton.  It  was  built  upon  the  basis  of 
Bond's  map  of  1853,  and  showed  great  familiarity  with  the  structure 
of  the  Mountains. 

2  In  the  winter  of  1870-71  occurred  the  first  winter  occupation 
of  Mount  Washington,  by  Huntington  and  others,  cis  related  else- 
where. 

212 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

east  side  of  Mount  Kinsman;  others  measured  the 
length  of  the  Profile  and  explored  the  Devil's  Den 
on  Mount  Willard.  Soon  after  the  disbanding  of 
the  first  party,  a  new  one  was  formed,  some  of  the 
members  of  which  remained  two  months  longer  ex- 
ploring the  country  as  far  south  as  Sandwich. 

A  still  larger  party  than  the  first  of  the  preceding 
year  was  organized  for  work  in  1872.  It  included 
thirteen  members  of  the  class  of  1872  of  Dartmouth 
College,  and  two  members  of  the  class  of  1873.  One 
section  of  it  was  engaged  in  making  a  plane-table 
survey  of  the  southwest  portion  of  the  Mountain 
area,  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the  map.  The 
remainder  of  the  party  examined,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  Mr.  Huntington,  the  rocks  along  the  Saco 
Valley  and  in  Albany,  being  occupied  in  this  work 
for  a  period  of  three  weeks. 

Although  the  exploration  had  been  essentially 
completed  in  1872,  Messrs.  Hitchcock  and  Hunt- 
ington visited  a  few  points  about  the  Mountains 
in  1873  and  later  years  for  the  sake  of  completing 
their  knowledge  of  them.  In  1875,  Professor  Hitch- 
cock made  a  special  reexamination  of  the  Saco  Val- 
ley, and  in  July  of  that  year  he  made  observations 
in  the  Crawford  Notch  along  the  line  of  the  new  rail- 
road, Professor  J.  D.  Dana  examining  with  him  the 
rocks  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  second  cut  from  the 
Crawford  House.  In  the  course  of  this  field  work  two 
flumes,  Hitchcock  and  Butterwort,  were  discovered 
on  Mount  Willard  by  Professor  Hitchcock. 

Such  are  in  outline  the  main  features  of  the  work 
of  this  Survey  so  far  as  it  concerned  the  White 

213 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mountains.  The  results  of  this  great  State  enter- 
prise are  embodied  in  the  three  monumental  volumes 
on  the  geology  of  New  Hampshire,^  published  by 
the  State  of  New  Hampshire  (1874-78),  the  first  two 
of  which  contain  a  vast  amount  of  information  con- 
cerning the  scientific  aspects  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains, with  many  illustrations,  maps,  and  diagrams 
relating  to  them. 

It  remains,  before  I  am  done  with  this  topic  of 
the  scientific  exploration  of  the  Mountains,  to  set 
down  briefly  the  facts  and  circumstances  relating 
to  the  activities  of  one  or  two  other  investigators 
in  this  field  than  those  whose  work  under  State  aus- 
pices has  just  been  described. ^ 

^  Volume  I  contains:  "History  of  Explorations  among  the  White 
Mountains,"  by  Warren  Upham;  "The  Distribution  of  Insects  in 
New  Hampshire,"  by  William  F.  Flint;  and  "Scenery  of  Co6s 
County,"  by  J.  H.  Huntington.  The  geology  of  the  White  Mountain 
district  is  given  in  volume  11  (1877).  Volume  iii  contains  little  about 
the  Mountains.  The  maps  include  a  large  contour  map  issued  in 
sections  and  a  colored  geological  map  in  sections. 

*  Among  early  geological  explorers  of  this  region  who  published 
articles  embodying  the  results  of  their  observations  are  Oliver  P. 
Hubbard,  M.D.,  Henry  D.  and  William  B.  Rogers,  and  Professor  J. 
P.  Lesley.  Dr.  Hubbard  studied  the  geology  and  mineralogy  of  the 
Mountains  and  published  an  outline  of  the  results  of  his  investiga- 
tions in  the  American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts  for  April,  1838.  In 
the  same  journal  for  March,  1850,  he  printed  the  results  of  his  study 
of  the  condition  of  trap  dikes  as  evidence  of  erosion.  The  Rogerses 
explored  the  Notch  in  July,  1845,  and  published  a  joint  article  on  the 
geological  age  of  the  White  Mountains  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Science  and  Arts  for  May,  1846.  Professor  Lesley  visited  the  region 
in  1849  and  subsequent  years,  and  in  1857  made  a  section  along  the 
Grand  Trunk  Railway.  In  the  Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences  of  Philadelphia  for  i860,  he  stated  briefly  the  results  of  some 
observations  made  in  the  White  Mountains  during  that  summer. 
Among  those  who  have  dealt  with  the  glacial  phenomena  are,  besides 
Agassiz,  Professors  C.  H.  Hitchcock,  Alpheus  S.  Packard,  and 
Warren  Uphara. 

214 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

The  beloved  teacher,  Louis  Agassiz,  made  a  jour- 
ney here  the  first  summer  (1847)  after  his  arrival  in 
America.  At  that  time  he  "noticed  unmistakable 
evidences  of  the  former  existence  of  local  glaciers," 
which,  he  says,  "were  the  more  clear  and  impres- 
sive to  me  because  I  was  then  fresh  from  my  inves- 
tigation of  the  glaciers  in  Switzerland."  Beyond  the 
mere  statement,  in  a  letter  to  Elie  de  Beaumont,  of 
the  fact  of  his  having  seen  some  very  distinct  mo- 
raines in  some  valleys  of  the  White  Mountains,  he 
at  that  time  made  no  report  upon  the  glacial  phe- 
nomena of  the  region,  publishing  nothing  in  the 
way  of  a  detailed  account  of  the  observations,  be- 
cause he  did  not  then  have  time  to  study  the  diffi- 
cult problem  closely  enough.  Opportunity  to  revisit 
the  region  for  a  more  careful  examination  did  not 
present  itself  until  twenty-three  years  later.  As  a 
result  of  a  prolonged  stay  among  the  Hills  in  the 
summer  of  1870,  however,  he  was  able  to  trace  the 
contact  of  the  more  limited  phenomena  of  the  local 
glaciers,  which  succeeded  the  all-embracing  winter 
of  the  Glacial  period,  with  the  more  widespread  and 
general  features  of  the  drift.  In  a  paper,  published 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Nineteenth  Meeting  of 
the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  held  in  that  year,  were  set  forth  the  gen- 
eral facts  then  ascertained,  which  were  all  that  the 
space  admitted.  He  described  especially  the  fine 
moraines  in  Bethlehem  and  vicinity,  which  particu- 
larly interested  him,  noting  the  various  kinds,  de- 
fining their  locations,  and  indicating  the  course 
and  extent  of  the  glaciers  which  occupied  the  re- 

215 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

gion.*  Very  fittingly,  in  honor  of  the  great  scientist, 
his  name  has  been  bestowed  upon  the  prominent 
hill  in  that  town,  formerly  known  as  "Peaked"  or 
"Picket  Hill,"  and  now  visited  annually  by  so  many 
persons  for  its  magnificent  panoramic  view.^  He 
is  commemorated  also  elsewhere  in  the  Mountains, 
the  striking  rock  formation  on  the  Moosilauke  Brook 
in  Woodstock,  where  the  water  of  the  stream  rolls 
through  deep  black  basins  hollowed  out  of  the  solid 
granite,  having  been  named  the  "Agassiz  Basins" 
shortly  after  his  visit  to  the  locality. 

Agassiz's  personal  friend  and  scientific  associate 
of  long  standing,  —  they  had  been  intimates  from 
boyhood  and  colleagues  in  Switzerland,  —  Arnold 
Guyot,  compelled  to  abandon  his  work  in  Europe 
because  of  the  political  disturbances  of  1848,  fol- 
lowed his  friend  to  this  country,  which  he  was 
destined,  like  his  friend  also,  to  make  his  place  of 
abode  thereafter.  Although  Guyot  finally  settled  at 
Princeton,  while  Agassiz  was  attached  to  Harvard, 
the  two  friends  kept  up  their  intercourse  and  shared 
all  their  scientific  interests. 

The  Princeton  professor,  who  made  geography  his 
specialty,  began  as  early  as  1849  a  series  of  investi- 
gations of  the  physical  structure  of  the  Appalachian 
Mountain  system  and  of  measurements  of  its  alti- 
tudes from  New  Hampshire  to  Georgia.     In  that 

^  What  one  mountain  jehu  remarked  of  Agassiz  and  his  assistants, 
after  witnessing  the  apparently  strange  antics  of  the  scientific  observ- 
ers, has  happily  been  preserved.  "They  said  they  was  'naturals,' and 
I  should  think  they  was!" 

*  A  noble  tribute  to  the  great  man  is  the  poem  of  Charlotte  Fiske 
Bates  (Madame  Roget),  entitled  "Mount  Agassiz."  It  is  printed 
in  Musgrove's  The  White  Hills  in  Poetry. 

216 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

year  he  made  the  first  of  a  series  of  four  summer 
excursions  devoted  to  the  barometric  exploration  of 
the  White  Mountains,  and  he  continued  his  work 
until  he  had  spent  five  years  over  New  Hampshire, 
the  Green  Mountains  of  Vermont,  and  the  Adiron- 
dacks  and  other  elevated  regions  in  the  State  of 
New  York.  Among  his  companions,  who  constantly 
made  corresponding  observations  to  his,  were  Mr. 
Ernest  Sandoz,  who  was  with  him  in  nearly  all  his 
excursions,  Mr.  £mile  Grand  Pierre,  who  accom- 
panied him  during  three  summers,  and  Alexander 
Agassiz,  Edward  Rutledge,  and  Herbert  Torrey, 
then  young  men,  who  gave  him  active  assistance 
in  the  White  Mountains. 

In  1 85 1,  Professor  Guyot  measured  Mount  Wash- 
ington by  barometric  observations,  and  obtained  the 
height  of  6291  feet,^  only  two  feet  under  the  now 
accepted  altitude,  ascertained  by  Captain  T.  J. 
Cram  by  spirit  leveling  in  1853.  He  continued  his 
explorations  in  the  White  Hills  from  time  to  time. 
In  1857,  he  made  ascents  of  Mounts  Washington, 
Willard,  and  Carrigain.^  The  association  of  his  name 
with  the  region  has  been  made  perpetual  by  the 
conferring  of  it  upon  one  of  the  peaks  of  the  Twin 
Mountain  Range. 

Notable  scientific  work  has  been  done  in  the 
Mountains  in  the  domain  of  entomology  by  Samuel 

^  In  his  memoir  "On  the  Appalachian  Mountain  System,"  pub- 
lished in  the  American  Journal  of  Scietice  and  Arts  for  March,  1861, 
he  changed  his  figures  to  6288. 

'  The  itinerary  of  his  expedition  of  this  year,  with  letters  written 
while  en  route,  is  given  by  S.  Hastings  Grant,  one  of  his  companions, 
in  Appalachia  for  June,  1907. 

217 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

H.  Scudder,  a  pupil  of  Agassiz  and  the  first  of  the 
vice-presidents  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club 
and  the  first  editor  of  Appalachia;  by  Mrs.  Annie 
Trumbull  Slosson,  noted  also  as  a  story- writer;  and 
by  J.  H.  Emerton,  the  authority  on  spiders. 

The  explorations  of  the  earlier  botanists  in  these 
happy  hunting-grounds  of  the  plant-lover  have  been 
narrated.  Additional  information  as  to  the  scientific 
aspects  of  the  plants  of  the  Mountains  and  as  to  the 
plants  of  different  localities  has  been  furnished  by 
a  number  of  later  investigators.  The  volumes  of 
Appalachia  contain  many  valuable  articles  and  notes 
on  botanical  matters,  as  well  as  on  other  scientific 
phenomena  of  the  region,  by  members  of  the  Appa- 
lachian Mountain  Club  who  are  scientists  by  pro- 
fession or  who  find  their  recreation  in  the  making 
of  observations  or  explorations  as  amateurs.  The 
literary  naturalists,  Bradford  Torrey,  Frank  Bolles, 
and  Winthrop  Packard,  whose  main  interest  is 
ornithological,  have  also  written  about  the  flowers 
and  their  haunts  found  in  wandering  afoot  among 
the  Hills.  The  writers  just  mentioned  have  des- 
canted pleasingly,  even  if  sometimes  too  exclusively 
for  the  general  reader,  upon  the  birds  which  make 
their  spring  and  summer  sojourn  here. 

The  story  of  an  exploring  feat,  of  the  nature  of  a 
satisfaction  of  curiosity  rather  than  of  scientific  in- 
quiry, may  well  find  space  here.  This  is  the  descent 
to  the  Devil's  Den,  a  dark-mouthed  cave  high  up  on 
the  sheer  cliffs  of  the  south  side  of  Mount  Willard, 
where  it  is  plainly  seen  from  the  Notch.  This  peril- 
ous undertaking  was  twice  accomplished  during  the 

218 


LATER  SCIENTIFIC  EXPLORATIONS 

last  century  by  daring  explorers.  There  is  a  tradi- 
tion that  Abel  Crawford  visited  it  many  years  ago 
and  found  the  bottom  bestrewn  with  bones  and 
other  ghastly  remains.  Be  that  as  it  may,  curiosity 
was  early  aroused  as  to  what  this  lofty  hollow,  in- 
accessible by  any  way  affording  foothold,  might  con- 
tain. According  to  Spaulding,  the  credit  of  first 
visiting  the  place  belongs  to  F.  Leavitt,  Esq.,  who, 
by  means  of  a  rope  let  down  from  the  overhanging 
rock,  succeeded  in  reaching  the  level  of  the  cavern. 
Finding,  it  is  said,  a  collection  of  skulls  and  bones 
of  animals  scattered  about  the  entrance,  the  explorer 
lost  all  desire  to  enter  the  dismal  den,  and,  after 
dangling  but  a  short  while  at  this  perilous  height, 
gave  the  signal  to  be  drawn  up.  "As  the  old  Evil 
One  has  such  daily  business  with  mortal  affairs," 
remarks  Mr.  Spaulding,  with  quiet  humor,  "rather 
than  believe  that  to  be  his  abode,  it  appears  more 
just  to  conclude  that  alone  there  the  mountain  eagle 
finds  a  solitary  home." 

In  1870,  as  has  been  mentioned,  the  cavern  was 
explored  by  members  of  the  Geological  Survey  party, 
let  down,  by  means  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
feet  of  rope  from  the  summit  of  the  mountain. 
"Our  explorers,"  says  Professor  Hitchcock,  "... 
discovered  nothing  mysterious  about  this  locality, 
but  would  not  advise  visitors  to  explore  it  again 
without  better  facilities  for  going  and  coming  than 
they  enjoyed." 


X 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  RAILROADS  —  THEIR  LATER 
EXTENSIONS 

As  a  glance  at  the  map  of  the  White  Mountain 
region  will  suggest,  there  is  in  this  country  probably 
no  other  summer-resort  area,  and  certainly  no  other 
mountain  district  of  anything  like  its  extent,  that 
is  to-day  provided  with  such  an  abundance  of  rail- 
road facilities,  rendering  it  at  once  easy  of  access 
and  convenient  for  local  travel.  Indeed,  this  is  so 
much  the  case  that  it  may  be  affirmed  that,  like 
some  other  parts  of  New  England,  it  is  possibly 
oversupplied  with  such  means  of  transportation.  In 
these  automobile  days  the  railroad  has  ceased  to 
play  so  great  a  part  as  it  once  did  as  a  carrier  of 
people  to  and  through  the  Mountains,  but  in  former 
days  it  was  an  essential  and  very  great  element  in 
the  growth,  and,  indeed,  in  the  very  existence,  of  the 
region  as  a  summer  resort. 

As  a  necessary  preliminary,  therefore,  to  an  ac- 
count of  that  development,  as  well  as  for  its  own  in- 
trinsic interest,  a  brief  outline  of  the  chief  steps  by 
which  the  railroads  approached  the  Mountains  from 
different  points  and  of  the  building  of  the  local  ex- 
tensions would  seem  to  be  pertinent  at  this  point. 

The  first  railroad  to  reach  the  region  was  the  At- 
lantic and  St.  Lawrence  Railroad,  which  was  pro- 
jected to  run  from  Portland,  Maine,  to  Island  Pond, 

220 


THE  RAILROADS 

Vermont,  and  which  was  chartered  successively  in 
1845,  1847,  and  1848,  by  the  three  States  it  was  to 
cross.  Construction  was  begun  July  4,  1846,  and 
was  completed  as  far  as  Gorham,  New  Hampshire, 
early  in  1852.  The  entire  line  from  Portland  to  the 
western  terminus  in  Vermont  was  opened  in  Janu- 
ary of  the  following  year.  At  the  latter  place  this 
railroad  was  to  connect  with  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
Atlantic  Railroad,  a  line  from  Montreal  to  that  point 
in  Vermont,  the  two  roads,  with  the  interchanged 
names,  thereby  forming  a  continuous  route  between 
the  two  cities.  The  Canadian  line  was  completed 
and  opened  for  business  in  July,  1853.  On  the  even- 
ing of  the  1 8th  of  that  month,  the  first  train  from 
Montreal  arrived  in  Portland,  where  it  was  received 
with  the  ringing  of  bells,  a  salute  of  thirty-one  guns, 
and  various  other  formal  and  informal  manifesta- 
tions of  joy  at  the  consummation  of  this  great  work. 
About  this  time  the  amalgamation  of  a  number  of 
Canadian  lines  into  one  Grand  Trunk  Railway  was 
effected,  and  to  this  system  the  Atlantic  and  St. 
Lawrence  Railroad  was  leased  for  999  years  on 
August  8,  1853. 

The  route  of  the  Atlantic  and  St.  Lawrence  Rail- 
road, which  is  now  known  only  by  the  general  name 
of  the  Grand  Trunk,  and  which  is  the  one  that  has 
present  interest  for  us,  is,  when  approaching  the 
Mountains,  up  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Andros- 
coggin River,  through  Shelburne  and  Gorham.  It 
thus  passes  to  the  north  of  the  White  Mountains, 
and  so  has  been  superseded  for  the  most  part,  as  a 
means  of  access  to  the  region,  by  the  railroads  from 

221 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  south  and  another  railroad  from  Portland  reach- 
ing directly  the  resorts  among  the  Mountains.  At 
the  time  of  the  completion  of  this  first  railroad  to 
Gorham,  there  were  only  five  public  houses  from 
which  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington  could  be 
reached  in  a  day,  which  statement  will  give  the 
reader,  familiar  with  the  accommodations  of  to-day, 
some  notion  of  the  development  of  the  region  since 
the  coming  of  the  railroads. 

The  advance  of  the  railroads  from  the  south  was 
a  slow  one,  forty  years  elapsing  from  the  time  the 
early  railroads  out  of  Boston  were  opened  before  a 
traveler  could  reach  the  heart  of  the  Mountains 
from  that  city  entirely  by  rail. 

The  Boston  and  Lowell  Railroad  was  opened  for 
travel  June  26,  1835.  Three  days  before  this  opening 
of  the  road  to  Lowell,  the  Nashua  and  Lowell  Rail- 
road Company  obtained  a  charter  to  build  a  road 
from  the  State  line  northwardly  in  the  Merrimac 
Valley.  The  line  was  opened  to  Nashua,  December 
23, 1838.  The  surveys  for  the  next  link,  the  Concord 
Railroad,  were  made  by  Loammi  Baldwin,  Jr., 
William  Gibbs  McNeill,  and  George  Washington 
Whistler,^  the  father  of  the  artist,  and  the  pioneer 
passenger  train  ran  into  Concord  ^  Tuesday  evening, 
September  6,  1842,  a  great  gathering  of  rejoicing 

^  Major  Whistler  went  to  Russia  in  1842  to  superintend  the  con- 
struction of  the  railroad  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Moscow,  and  died 
in  that  country  seven  years  later.  William  Gibbs  McNeill  was  his 
brother-in-law. 

'  A  favorite  route  to  New  Hampshire  from  New  York  about  1850 
was  by  steamer  to  Norwich,  Connecticut,  and  thence  to  Concord  via 
the  Norwich  and  Worcester  Railroad,  opened  in  1840,  the  Nashua 
and  Worcester  Raih-oad,  and  the  Concord  Railroad. 

222 


THE  RAILROADS 

people  being  on  hand  to  welcome  it.  This  was  only 
twelve  years  after  the  first  steam  railway,  the  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester,  was  built. 

North  of  Concord  two  lines  were  soon  under  con- 
struction, and  in  a  little  more  than  ten  years  Little- 
ton was  reached.  Here,  however,  the  advance  was 
halted  for  two  decades.^ 

The  Northern  Railroad  of  New  Hampshire  started 
from  Concord,  proceeded  up  the  Merrimac  to  Frank- 
lin, and  then  struck  over  to  a  point  on  the  Connecti- 
cut River  near  the  mouth  of  its  tributary,  the  White 
River.  It  was  opened  to  Lebanon  in  November,  1847, 
and  to  White  River  Junction  in  the  town  of  Hart- 
ford, Vermont,  in  June,  1848.  There  it  connected 
with  the  Vermont  Central  Railroad  (later  the  Cen- 
tral Vermont)  and  with  the  Connecticut  and  Pas- 
sumpsic  Rivers  Railroad,  lines  then  under  construc- 
tion. With  the  latter,  which  was  in  operation  to 
Wells  River  as  early  as  1849,  it  formed  a  route  much 
used,  though  somewhat  less  direct,  by  travelers  to 
the  Mountains  in  the  early  days  as  an  alternative 
to  the  one  about  to  be  mentioned.  The  Northern 
Railroad  became  a  part  of  the  Boston  and  Maine 
system  in  1890. 

The  Boston,  Concord,  and  Montreal  Railroad, 
the  other  line  and  the  one  which  has  more  of  interest 
for  us  as  that  which  eventually  became  a  link  in  the 
principal  through  route  from  Boston  to  the  White 
Mountain  region,  was  chartered  on  December  27, 

*  A  correspondent,  "  Pennacook,"  of  the  New  York  Herald,  writing 
from  the  Flume  House,  June  15,  1853,  speaks  of  the  approaching 
opening  of  the  railroad  to  Littleton,  and  adds,  "No  railroad  should 
ever  be  constructed  farther  into  these  mountains  than  Littleton." 

223 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

1844.  It  was  to  start  from  Concord  or  Bow,  and 
was  to  extend  to  some  point  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Connecticut  River  opposite  Haverhill  or  to  Little- 
ton. Construction  was  immediately  undertaken  by 
the  enterprising  and  courageous  people  who  lived 
along  its  way,  and  on  May  22,  1848,  there  was  an 
opening  of  the  road  to  Sanbornton  (now  Tilton). 
On  this  occasion  the  new  engine,  "Old  Man  of  the 
Mountain,"  and  cars  painted  sky-blue,  were  deemed 
peculiarly  appropriate  for  a  line  whose  future  travel 
would  largely  consist  of  traffic  to  and  from  the  White 
Mountains.  Plymouth  was  reached  in  January, 
1850,  and  Wells  River,  May  10,  1853.  Late  the 
same  year,  in  December,  the  White  Mountains  Rail- 
road was  opened  to  Littleton.  Twenty  years  later, 
this  latter  line  became  by  purchase  a  part  of  the 
Boston,  Concord,  and  Montreal  Railroad. 

In  1856,  when  the  "Boston,  Concord,  and  Mon- 
treal Railroad,  which  was  peculiarly  a  New  Hamp- 
shire enterprise,  was  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy, 
John  E.  Lyon  took  charge  of  it.  To  his  courage, 
initiative,  and  persistency  were  due  the  extensions 
built  into  the  north  country  beyond  Littleton 
between  1869  and  1878. 

This  railroad-builder  was,  it  may  be  mentioned 
in  passing,  concerned  in  many  other  enterprises  con- 
nected with  the  development  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains as  a  resort.  Besides  being  associated  with  Mr. 
Marsh  in  the  Mount  Washington  Railway,  he  was 
instrumental  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  Pemigewasset 
House  at  Plymouth  and  in  the  building  of  the  Fabyan 
House  and  of  the  Summit  House  on  Mount  Wash- 

224 


THE  RAILROADS 

ington,  and  was  one  of  the  incorporators  of  the 
Moosilauke  Mountain  Road  Company. 

The  further  extensions  of  the  White  Mountains 
Railroad  referred  to  were  to  Lancaster,  to  which 
point  the  road  was  opened  October  31,  1870;  to 
Groveton,  reached  on  the  national  holiday  two 
years  later;  and  to  Fabyan  by  way  of  Wing  Road, 
to  which  terminus  the  road  was  opened  July  4,  1874. 
Two  years  afterwards,  the  railroad  was  extended 
from  Fabyan  to  the  Base  in  time  to  be  opened 
early  in  July,  and  thus  the  stage  service  over  the 
turnpike  from  Fabyan  to  the  Mount  Washington 
Railway  was  superseded.  The  Profile  House  and 
Bethlehem  were  for  some  years  longer  accessible 
only  by  stage,  but  in  1879  ^  narrow-gauge  road  was 
opened  to  the  former  and  in  188 1  to  the  latter.  These 
branch  lines,  which  are  operated  only  in  the  sum- 
mer, remained  narrow-gauge  until  1897,  when  the 
change  to  standard-gauge  was  completed.^ 

What  these  extensions  meant  to  the  development 
of  the  region  as  a  summer  recreation  ground  and 
tourist  center  will  be  at  once  evident  to  any  present- 
day  frequenter  of  the  White  Mountains,  when  he 
recalls  that  for  more  than  a  score  of  years  Littleton 
was  the  northern  terminus  of  the  White  Mountains 
Railroad,  and  that  Bethlehem,  the  Profile  House  and 
the  Franconia  Notch,  the  Crawford  House  and  Notch, 
and  other  places  were  accessible  only  by  long  and 
tedious,  and  often  otherwise  unpleasant,  stage  rides. 

*  I  am  indebted  to  the  Boston  and  Maine  Railroad,  and  particu- 
larly to  Mr.  G.  E.  Cummings,  superintendent  of  the  White  Mountains 
Division,  for  information  as  to  the  time  of  this  change  of  gauge  on  the 
Profile  and  Franconia  Notch  Railroad. 

225 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

The  openings  of  two  more  branch  lines  remain  to 
be  chronicled.  North  Woodstock,  now  become  a  con- 
siderable summer  resort,  was  connected  by  rail  with 
Plymouth  in  1883.  Ten  years  later,  a  road  twenty 
miles  long  was  opened  to  Berlin.  This  started  at  the 
old  terminus  on  Jefferson  Meadow  of  the  Whitefield 
and  Jefferson  Railroad,  opened  in  1879,  at  a  point 
near  to  which  starts  the  spur,  opened  in  1892,  to  the 
Waumbek  Hotel,  and  passed  through  Randolph 
and  Gorham. 

All  of  these  railroads  in  the  Mountain  region  now 
form  a  part  of  the  Boston  and  Maine  Railroad  sys- 
tem, which  controls  nearly  all  the  railroads  in  the 
Granite  State. 

The  lines  up  the  Connecticut  River  from  Spring- 
field, Massachusetts,  which  city  was  connected  by 
rail  with  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  1844,  were  opened 
at  various  times.  The  principal  links  in  the  northern 
part  of  this  the  most  direct  route  from  New  York 
City  to  the  White  Mountains  were  the  Connecticut 
River  Railroad,  opened  to  South  Vernon,  January 
I,  1849;  the  Vermont  Valley  Railroad,  Brattleboro 
to  Bellows  Falls,  opened  in  1851 ;  the  Sullivan  County 
Railroad,  Bellows  Falls  to  Windsor,  opened  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1849,  and  sold  October  i,  1880,  to  the  Ver- 
mont Valley  Railroad;  and  the  Connecticut  and 
Passumpsic  Rivers  Railroad,  from  White  River 
Junction  on.  All  these  lines  were  eventually  leased 
to  the  Boston  and  Maine. 

Another  important  means  of  rendering  the  Moun- 
tains accessible  by  rail  was  undertaken  in  the  early 
seventies  in  the  construction  of  the  Portland  and 

226 


THE  RAILROADS 

Ogdensburg  Railroad,  so  called,  some  one  has  face- 
tiously remarked,  because  it  started  from  Portland 
and  never  reached  Ogdensburg.  To  two  brothers,  cit- 
izens of  the  State  of  Maine,  belongs  the  credit  for  the 
building  of  this  railroad,  which  vies  with  the  Mount 
Washington  Railway  as  a  conception  and  achieve- 
ment and  in  scenic  interest.  General  Samuel  J.  An- 
derson, of  Portland,  was  the  foremost  promoter  of 
the  road  and  its  first  president.  "Being,"  says  Mrs. 
Mason  in  her  article  on  Conway,  "a  gifted  and  per- 
suasive speaker,  it  was  easy  for  him  to  induce  the 
town  of  Conway  to  raise  five  per  cent  of  its  valuation 
for  the  building  of  the  road."  John  Farwell  Anderson, 
of  South  Windham,  Maine,  was  the  engineer.  Main- 
taining that  the  gorges  of  the  Crawford  Notch  could 
be  bridged,  he  accomplished  the  feat  after  it  had 
been  repeatedly  declared  impossible  by  other  engi- 
neers. The  company  was  chartered  in  February, 
1867,  and  in  four  and  a  half  years  the  line  reached 
North  Conway.  It  was  opened  to  Fabyan  in 
August,  1875.  Some  idea  of  the  difficulties  and 
expense  of  construction  and  operation  may  be  gained 
from  the  facts  that  of  the  total  ascent  of  1890  feet 
from  Portland  to  Crawford's,  1369  feet  are  included 
in  the  thirty  miles  between  North  Conway  and  the 
latter  place,  and  that  between  Bemis  and  Craw- 
ford's the  rise  is  116  feet  to  the  mile  for  nine  con- 
secutive miles.  Such  structures  on  the  right  of  way 
as  the  Frankenstein  Trestle  ^  and  the  Willey  Brook 
Bridge  are  striking  evidences  of  the  skill  and  genius 
of  the  engineer. 

*  The  old  trestle  was  replaced  by  a  new  steel  one  in  1895. 
227 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Less  than  a  year  after  the  Portland  and  Ogdens- 
burg  was  opened  to  North  Conway,  the  Eastern 
Railroad,  now  a  part  of  the  Boston  and  Maine, 
reached  Conway.  To-day  the  rail  connection  be- 
tween the  two,  which  form  together  another  through 
route  from  Boston  to  the  Mountains,  is  at  Inter- 
vale. In  1888,  the  former  road  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Maine  Central  and  was  renamed  the  Mountain 
Division  of  that  railroad.  The  following  year  the 
line  was  extended  from  Fabyan  to  Scott's  Mills 
via  the  Twin  Mountain  House  and  Whitefield,  thus 
completing  a  route  passing  entirely  through  the 
heart  of  the  Mountains.  A  later  extension  to  the 
northward,  from  Quebec  Junction  to  North  Strat- 
ford, opened  in  1891,  made  the  Maine  Central  a 
means  of  access  to  the  region  from  Canada. 


XI 

THE  HOTELS  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  —  THE  CAR- 
RIAGE ROAD,  AND  THE  MOUNT  WASHINGTON 
RAILWAY  —  HOTELS  AND  SHELTERS  ON  OTHER 
SUMMITS 

The  steps  in  two  connected  enterprises  —  one  the 
supplying  of  shelter  for  visitors  to  Mount  Washing- 
ton and  the  other  the  providing  of  means  of  making 
the  ascent  for  others  than  persons  coming  on  foot  or 
on  horseback  —  form  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
series  of  events  in  White  Mountain  history.  The 
joint  story  covers  a  long  period  of  time  and  is  a  record 
worthy  of  the  strong  men  who  by  their  courage  and 
energy  have  made  New  Hampshire  famous.  I  have 
already  told  of  the  building  of  the  earlier  footpaths 
and  the  bridle  path  and  of  the  first  shelter  erected 
on  the  Mountain.  This  latter,  it  will  be  recalled, 
consisted  of  Ethan  Allen  Crawford's  three  stone 
cabins,  which,  soon  after  their  erection  in  1823,  were 
abandoned.  Mr.  Crawford  followed  these  with  a 
large  tent,  which  he  spread  near  a  spring  of  water 
not  far  from  the  Summit  and  which  was  provided 
with  a  sheet-iron  stove.  Because,  however,  of  the 
violent  storms  and  wind,  this  new  shelter  could  not 
be  kept  in  place  and  soon  wore  out. 

Soon  after  the  bridle  path  was  opened,  a  rude 
wooden  shelter  of  about  a  dozen  feet  square  was  built, 

229 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

but  its  existence  was  short,*  and  it  is  not  known 
what  became  of  it.  This  is  the  "Tip-Top  House," 
that  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale  tells  of  entering,  in 
September,  1841. 

The  first  hotel  on  Mount  Washington  was  built 
in  1852,  and  owed  its  construction  to  the  enterprise 
of  Nathan  R.  Perkins,  of  Jefferson,  and  Lucius  M. 
Rosebrook  and  Joseph  S.  Hall,  both  citizens  of  Lan- 
caster. This  difficult  work  was  begun  in  May,  and 
on  July  28  the  hotel,  the  "Summit  House,"  was 
opened  to  the  public. 

All  the  lumber  for  the  sheathing  and  roof  had  to 
be  carried  upon  horses  from  a  sawmill  near  Jefferson 
Highlands.  A  chain  was  hung  over  the  horse's  back 
and  one  end  of  each  board  was  run  through  a  loop 
at  the  end  of  the  chain,  two  boards  being  carried 
on  each  side  of  the  horse.  The  drivers,  D.  S.  Davis 
and  A.  Judson  Bedell,  walked  behind  carrying  the 
farther  end  of  the  boards.  Mr.  Rosebrook,  it  is  said, 
carried  the  front  door  up  the  Mountain  on  his  back 
from  the  Glen  House.  Such  were  the  obstacles  that 
were  overcome  by  these  energetic  men. 

This  structure,  which  stood  on  the  north  side  of 
the  peak,  was  built  largely  of  rough  stones  blasted 
from  the  Mountain  and  was  firmly  secured  to  its 
rocky  foundation  by  cement  and  large  iron  bolts. 
Over  the  low,  sloping  gable  roof  passed  four  stout 
cables.  It  was  enlarged  the  following  year,  when 
Mr.  Perkins  was  in  charge  and  a  half-interest  had 

^  Colonel  Charles  Parsons,  of  St.  Louis,  who  visited  Mount 
Washington  in  1900  for  the  second  time,  remembered  that  this 
shelter  was  in  existence  in  1844,  when  he  walked  up  the  Mountain. 
■(From  his  "Reminiscences"  in  Among  the  Clouds.) 

230 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

been  sold  to  Nathaniel  Noyes  and  an  associate,  and 
an  upper  story  with  a  pitched  roof  was  added.  It 
withstood  the  storms  of  winter  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  being  used,  after  the  building  of  the  second 
Summit  House,  as  a  dormitory  for  its  employees 
until  1884,  when  it  was  demolished. 

The  success  of  this  undertaking  led  to  the  erec- 
tion of  a  rival  house,  the  famous  Tip-Top  House, 
which  was  opened  in  August,  1853.  Samuel  Fitch 
Spaulding,  of  Lancaster,  was  the  builder,  and  his 
associates  in  the  project  and  in  the  management  of 
the  hotel  were  his  sons  and  a  nephew,  John  Hub- 
bard Spaulding,  the  author  of  "Historical  Relics  of 
the  White  Mountains."  It  was  built  of  rough  stones, 
similarly  to  the  Summit  House,  measured  eighty- 
four  by  twenty-eight  feet,  and  had  originally  a  deck 
roof,  upon  which  the  visitor  might  stand  and  thus 
have  an  unobstructed  view.  A  telescope  was  kept 
there  in  pleasant  weather.  Competition  between  the 
two  hotels  was  keen  the  first  common  season,  but  in 
1854  Mr.  Perkins  disposed  of  his  interest  in  the  Sum- 
mit House  to  the  Spauldings,  who  managed  the  two 
houses  for  nine  seasons.  Mary  B.  Spaulding  (Mrs. 
Lucius  Hartshorn),  daughter  of  Samuel  F.  Spaulding, 
managed  the  Tip-Top  House  for  three  seasons.  In 
a  letter  written  a  few  years  ago  she  gives  a  vivid 
description  of  the  difficulty  of  managing  a  hotel  on 
the  Mountain  at  that  day.  Everything  had  to  be 
brought  on  horses'  backs  from  the  Glen  House,  and 
fresh  meat,  potatoes,  milk,  and  cream  were  absent 
from  the  menu.  Among  the  supplies  kept  on  hand 
were  bacon,  ham,  tripe,  tongue,  eggs,  and  rice,  and 

231 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

pancakes,  johnnycake,  fried  cakes,  and  varieties  of 
hot  bread  and  biscuit  were  served.  The  number  of 
guests  for  dinner  was  very  uncertain  and  could  be 
roughly  estimated  only  from  the  number  of  visitors 
at  the  foot  of  the  Mountain  and  from  the  weather 
conditions.  Among  her  guests  she  names  Jefferson 
Davis,  Charles  Sumner,  Horace  Greeley,  and 
William  H.  Seward. 

C.  H.  V.  Cavis,  engineer  for  the  carriage  road, 
was  for  one  year  manager  of  the  Tip-Top  House. 
In  his  day,  according  to  Mrs.  Cavis,  in  order  to 
estimate  the  number  of  guests  for  dinner,  some  one 
went  to  what  is  known  as  Point  Lookoff ,  overlooking 
the  Lakes  of  the  Clouds,  and  counted  the  ponies 
in  the  cavalcade  coming  along  the  bridle  path  from 
Crawford's.  Others  came  from  the  Glen  and  from 
Fabyan's.  Landlord  Cavis  kept  some  cows  on  the 
plateau,  since  known  as  the  "Cow  Pasture,"  near 
the  seven-mile  post  of  the  carriage  road. 

The  first  woman  to  sleep  in  the  house  after  its 
opening  in  August,  1853,  was  a  Mrs.  Duhring,  of 
Philadelphia,  who  came  up  on  horseback  from  the 
Crawford  House  and  walked  down.  Twenty-four 
years  later  she  revisited  the  Mountain. 

From  1862  to  1872,  the  lessee  of  the  Tip-Top 
House  and  Summit  House  was  Colonel  John  R. 
Hitchcock,  who  was  also  the  proprietor  of  the  Alpine 
House  in  Gorham.  He  paid  a  rent  of  two  thousand 
dollars  a  year  after  the  first  year.  Colonel  Hitch- 
cock connected  the  two  houses,  and,  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  carriage  road,  an  upper  story  con- 
taining seventeen  little  bedrooms  was  added  to  the 

232 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

Tip-Top  House.  Mrs.  Atwood,  the  housekeeper  of 
the  Alpine  House,  had  charge  of  the  Summit  hotels, 
visiting  them  twice  a  week  in  a  specially  constructed 
light  two-horse  carriage.  During  the  Hitchcock 
regime,  in  which  baked  beans,  brown  bread,  and 
other  simple  dishes  were  chief  features  of  the  bill- 
of-fare,  the  business,  especially  after  the  building 
of  the  railway,  far  outgrew  the  accommodations. 
After  the  building  of  the  new  Summit  House,  the  Tip- 
Top  House  was  used  by  hotel  and  railway  employees 
for  a  few  years.  From  1877  to  1884,  the  printing 
office  of  Among  the  Clouds  was  in  the  old  hotel,  its 
front  room  being  equipped  for  that  purpose  in  the 
former  year.  After  that  use  of  it  ceased,  the  build- 
ing, owing  to  dampness,  fell  somewhat  into  decay 
and  came  to  be  visited  only  as  a  curiosity.  In  1898, 
an  observatory  was  constructed  at  the  western  end 
to  afford  a  good  place  from  which  to  watch  the 
sunsets. 

But  this  ancient  landmark  was  not  destined  to 
remain  a  curiosity  only.  As  the  sole  survivor  of  the 
fire  which  devastated  the  Summit  just  before  the 
opening  of  the  season  of  1908,  the  venerable  struc- 
ture had  necessarily  to  be  restored  to  its  original 
purpose  of  a  place  of  entertainment  and  shelter. 
As  such  it  continued  to  be  used  until  the  opening 
of  a  new  Summit  House  in  19 15. 

The  next  structure  to  be  built  on  the  Summit 
after  the  erection  of  the  Tip-Top  House  was  an 
observatory.   Built  in  1854,  by  Timothy  Estus,^  of 

^  So  Spaulding.  Professor  Hitchcock,  in  Mount  Washington  in 
Winter,  gives  the  builder's  name  as  Timothy  Eaton. 

233 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Jefferson,  it  was  a  framework  forty  feet  high  sup- 
ported by  iron  braces  at  the  corners.  It  was  pro- 
vided with  a  sort  of  elevator  operated  by  a  crank 
and  gearing  and  capable  of  accommodating  eight 
persons  at  a  time.  This  observatory,  which  cost 
about  six  hundred  dollars,  was  abandoned  as  a 
complete  failure  after  being  used  a  part  of  the  first 
season.  It  stood  until  the  summer  of  1856,  when  it 
was  torn  down. 

No  further  buildings  were  erected  on  Mount 
Washington  until  after  the  building  of  the  carriage 
road  and  of  the  railway,  when  the  necessary  struc- 
tures for  carrying  on  the  operation  of  these  means  of 
visiting  the  Summit  were  erected.  Soon  the  increase 
of  business  due  to  these  agencies  for  making  the 
peak  more  accessible  necessitated  the  provision  of 
greater  accommodations  for  the  shelter  of  visitors. 
From  time  to  time,  also,  buildings  for  various  other 
uses  were  added  to  the  Summit  settlement.  The  re- 
cording of  the  history  of  the  later  hotel  and  of  the 
other  structures  referred  to,  however,  properly  fol- 
lows the  stories  of  the  carriage  road  and  the  railway, 
and  will  be  set  down  in  due  course  after  the  latter 
have  been  related. 

The  construction  of  the  first-named  means  of 
access  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington  is  a 
work  which  bears  eloquent  witness  to  the  enterprise, 
courage,  and  persistence  of  its  projector  and  builders. 
The  road,  which  extends  from  the  Pinkham  Notch 
Road,  near  the  site  of  the  Glen  House,  to  the  Sum- 
mit, is  eight  miles  long  and  makes  an  ascent  of  forty- 
six  hundred  feet,  the  average  grade  being  one  foot  in 

234 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

eight  and  the  steepest,  one  foot  in  six.  To  General 
David  O.  Macomber,  of  Middietown,  Connecticut, 
belongs  the  credit  for  originating  this  undertaking. 
The  Mount  Washington  Road  Company  was  char- 
tered July  I,  1853,  with  a  capital  of  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  The  company  was  organized  at  the  Alpine 
House,  in  Gorham,  on  August  31  of  that  year, 
General  Macomber  being  chosen  president.  The 
road  was  surveyed  by  Engineers  C.  H.  V.  Cavis  and 
Ricker.  Two  incidents  of  the  surveying  period  have 
been  preserved  by  John  H.  Spaulding.  One  is  the 
measurement  of  the  height  of  the  Mountain  by 
actual  survey  made  by  the  engineers  in  1854,  who 
arrived  at  6284  feet  as  a  result.  The  other  incident 
was  the  dining,  on  July  16  of  that  year,  of  President 
Macomber,  Engineer  Cavis,  and  Mr.  Spaulding  in 
the  snow  arch.  It  was  then  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
six  feet  long,  eighty-four  feet  wide,  and  forty  feet 
high  to  the  roof.  Mr.  Spaulding  records  that,  during 
the  time  spent  in  this  somewhat  rash  action,  icy 
cold  water  constantly  dripped  down  around  them 
and  a  heavy  thundershower  passed  over  them. 

Construction  was  begun  by  Contractors  Rich  and 
Myers  in  or  about  the  year  1855,^  and  within  a 
year  two  miles  were  completed  and  further  con- 
struction was  under  way.  The  section  ending  at 
the  Ledge  just  above  the  Halfway  House,  a  total 
distance  of  four  miles  from  the  beginning,  was 
finished  in  1856.  Then  the  pioneer  company  failed, 
because  of  the  great  cost  of  construction.   A  new 

^  Mr.  Spaulding  notes  that  in  June,  1855,  the  road  is  "in  rapid 
progress  towards  completion." 

235 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

company,  the  Mount  Washington  Summit  Road 
Company,  was,  however,  incorporated  two  or  three 
years  later,  and  this  company  finished  the  road  in 
1861.  Joseph  S.  Hall,  one  of  the  builders  of  the 
Tip-Top  House,  was  the  contractor  for  this  work, 
and  John  P.  Rich,  the  first  contractor,  was  the 
superintendent.  The  road,  which  is  splendidly 
built  and  which  winds  up  the  Mountain  in  long 
gradual  lines  of  ascent,  places  where  there  are  steep 
grades  being  rendered  safe  by  stone  walls  on  the 
lower  side,  was  opened  for  travel  on  August  8,  1861. 

The  first  passenger  vehicle  which  arrived  at  the 
Summit  —  an  old-fashioned  Concord  stage-coach 
with  eight  horses  —  was  driven  by  George  W.  Lane, 
for  many  years  in  charge  of  the  Fabyan  House 
stables.^ 

The  memory  of  Mr.  Rich,  who  had  so  much  to 
do  with  the  construction  of  the  road  and  who  died 
in  California  in  1863,  has  been  preserved  by  a 
tablet  set  in  a  rock  by  the  roadside  near  the  Glen 
and  bearing  a  suitable  inscription.  Witness  to  the 
excellence  of  the  engineering  and  construction  work 
on  the  road,  as  well  as  of  the  care  with  which  it  has 
been  maintained,  is  borne  by  its  use  for  now  more 
than  fifty  years  and  its  well-preserved  condition. 

Striking  as  was  this  achievement  in  rendering  the 
top  of  New  England's  highest  mountain  more  ac- 

*  Landlord  Thompson,  of  the  Glen  House,  drove  to  the  Summit 
in  a  light  wagon  with  one  horse,  just  before  the  road  was  completed, 
thus  beating  his  rival  for  the  honor.  Colonel  Hitchcock.  Two  men 
assisted  in  keeping  the  wagon  right  side  up  as  he  drove  over  the  un- 
completed last  section  of  the  road.  Landlord  Thompson  was  also  in 
the  first  coach  driven  up. 

236 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

cessible,  it  was  soon  to  be  surpassed  in  boldness  of 
conception  and  skill  and  successfulness  of  execution 
by  another  undertaking  directed  to  the  same  end. 
I  refer  to  the  building  of  the  Mount  Washington 
Railway,  the  first  railway  of  its  kind  in  the  world. 
The  projector  of  this  enterprise  was  Sylvester  Marsh, 
a  native  son  of  New  Hampshire  and  a  Yankee 
genius.  The  idea  that  it  was  wholly  practicable  to 
apply  the  principle  of  the  cog  rail  to  a  mountain 
railroad  and  the  carrying  out  of  the  conception  was 
only  one  of  this  ingenious  New  Englander's  services 
to  the  world.  Having  gone  West  in  the  winter  of 
1833-34,  when  thirty  years  old,  Mr.  Marsh  became 
one  of  the  founders  of  Chicago,  prominent  in  the 
promotion  of  every  public  enterprise  there.  He  was 
the  originator  of  meat-packing  in  that  city  and  the 
inventor  of  many  of  the  appliances  used  in  that 
process,  especially  those  connected  with  the  employ- 
ment of  steam.  The  dried-meal  process  was  another 
of  his  inventions. 

When  on  a  visit  to  his  native  State  in  1852,  he 
one  day  made  an  ascent  of  Mount  Washington  with 
a  friend,  the  Reverend  A.  C.  Thompson,  of  Roxbury. 
It  was  while  struggling  up  the  Mountain,  or  perhaps 
a  little  later,  that  the  idea  came  to  him  that  a  rail- 
way to  the  Summit  was  feasible  and  could  be  made 
profitable.  Very  soon  he  set  to  work  and  invented 
the  mountain-climbing  mechanism,  and  then  with 
characteristic  energy  and  perseverance  he  fought 
his  project  through  to  completion  against  much 
opposition  and  ridicule.  In  1858,  he  exhibited  a 
model  of  the  line  to  the  State  Legislature  and  asked 

237 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

for  a  charter  to  build  steam  railways  up  Mount 
Washington  and  Mount  Lafayette.  The  charter 
was  granted  on  June  25  of  that  year,  one  legislator, 
it  is  said,  suggesting  the  satirical  amendment  that 
the  gentleman  should  also  receive  permission  to 
build  a  railway  to  the  moon.  Pecuniary  support  for 
so  apparently  ridiculous  a  proposal  was  difficult 
to  obtain,  and  before  anything  could  be  done  the 
breaking-out  of  the  Civil  War  postponed  action  for 
several  years  more.  Finally  a  company  was  formed, 
the  necessary  capital  being  furnished  by  the  rail- 
roads connecting  the  White  Mountain  region  with 
Boston  and  New  York.  At  the  outset,  however, 
Mr.  Marsh  had  to  rely  chiefly  on  his  own  resources, 
but  little  encouragement  being  received  until  an 
engine  was  actually  running  over  a  part  of  the  route. 
Construction  of  the  railway  was  at  length  begun  in 
May,  1866,  nearly  eight  years  after  the  granting  of 
the  charter.  In  order  to  render  its  starting-point 
accessible,  a  turnpike  from  Fabyan's  to  the  Base 
was  begun  in  April  of  that  same  year. 

As  the  railway  is  so  important  in  the  history  of 
mountain  railways  a  brief  description  of  its  mechan- 
ical features  may  not  be  out  of  order.  The  road  is 
of  the  type  known  as  the  "cog  road,"  or  the  rack 
and  pinion  railroad.  The  indispensable  peculiarity 
of  the  invention  is  the  heavy  central  rail,  which 
consists  of  two  parallel  pieces  of  steel  connected  by 
numerous  strong  cross-pins  or  bolts,  into  the  spaces 
between  which  the  teeth  of  the  cog  wheels  on  the 
locomotive  play.  As  the  driving-wheel  revolves,  the 
engine  ascends  or  descends,  resting  on  the  outer 

238 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

rails,  which  are  of  the  ordinary  pattern  and  which 
are  four  feet  seven  inches  apart. 

The  first  locomotive,  which  was  designed  by  Mr. 
Marsh  and  was  built  by  Campbell  and  Whittier,  of 
Boston,  was  used  until  entirely  worn  out.  Exhibited 
at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago  in  1893,  it  is  now 
in  the  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History.  It  had 
a  vertical  boiler  and  no  cab,  and  thus  resembled  a 
hoisting  engine  in  appearance.  The  present  type  of 
locomotive  was  designed  by  Walter  Aiken,  ^  of  Frank- 
lin, New  Hampshire,  who  was  the  man  to  work  out 
the  practical  details  of  Mr.  Marsh's  idea  and  who 
supervised  the  construction  of  the  road.  The  engine 
is  furnished  with  two  pairs  of  cylinders  and  driving 
gears,  thus  guaranteeing  ample  security  in  case  of  ac- 
cident. The  car  is  provided  with  similar  cog  wheels 
to  those  on  the  engine  and  with  brakes  of  its  own, 
insuring  safety  independent  of  the  engine.  There 
are  separate  brakes  on  each  axle  of  the  car  and  an 
additional  safety  device  on  both  it  and  the  engine 
in  the  form  of  a  toothed  wheel  and  ratchet.  This 
latter  mechanism  affords  the  greatest  protection 
against  accident,  as  it  prevents  the  wheels  of  the 
car  or  of  the  engine  from  turning  backward.  It  is, 
of  course,  raised  during  the  descent,  but  it  can  be 

^  From  an  article  by  Mr.  Aiken  in  Among  the  Clouds  for  September 
I,  1877,  it  appears  that  Herrick  Aiken,  of  Franklin,  about  1850 
conceived  the  idea  of  ascending  Mount  Washington  by  means  of  a 
cog  railroad.  He  went  so  far  as  to  build  a  model  of  a  roadbed  and 
track  with  the  cog  rail  and  to  make  two  ascents  of  the  Mountain  on 
horseback  for  the  purpose  of  determining  the  feasibility  of  the  route, 
etc.;  but  he  was  dissuaded  from  undertaking  the  project  by  promi- 
nent railroad  men  whom  he  consulted  and  who  thought  it  impracti- 
cable and  unlikely  to  be  profitable. 

239 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

dropped  instantly  into  place  in  an  emergency.  The 
car  is  pushed  up  the  Mountain  and  descends  behind 
the  locomotive,  and  is  not  fastened  to  it.  The  train 
moves  very  slowly,  so  slowly,  indeed,  that  a  person 
can  easily,  if  necessary,  step  on  or  off  while  it  is 
under  full  headway.  Seventy  minutes  are  required 
to  make  the  trip  up.  The  safety  appliances,  the 
powerfully  constructed  locomotive,  the  moderate 
speed,  the  constant  inspection,  and  the  experienced 
men  concerned  in  the  operation  of  the  road  have 
eliminated  the  element  of  danger  from  the  trip.  No 
passenger  has  yet  been  injured  in  all  the  years  since 
the  road's  opening. 

The  route  was  surveyed  and  located  by  Colonel 
Orville  E.  Freeman,  of  Lancaster,  New  Hampshire, 
a  son-in-law  of  the  pioneer,  Ethan  Allen  Crawford. 
Very  appropriately,  the  course  of  the  railway  is 
substantially  that  of  the  latter's  early  path  to  the 
Summit.  The  length  of  the  road  is  about  three  and 
one  third  miles,  and  the  elevation  overcome  is  about 
three  thousand  seven  hundred  feet.  The  average 
grade  is  one  foot  in  four  and  the  maximum  thirteen 
and  one  half  inches  in  three  feet,  or  one  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  eighty  feet  to  the  mile.  With 
the  exception  of  the  railway  up  Mount  Pilatus  in 
Switzerland,  the  Mount  Washington  Railway  is  the 
steepest  in  the  world  of  the  type  of  which  it  is  the 
pioneer.  The  road  is  built  on  a  wooden  trestle  all 
the  way  except  a  short  distance  near  the  Base, 
where  the  track  lies  on  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

But  to  return  to  its  history.  The  first  quarter  of 
a  mile  was  finished  in  1866,  and  a  test  was  made 

240 


< 

15-      <u 


•^.     't. 

<     2 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

which  demonstrated  the  practicability  of  the  inven- 
tion. A  half-mile  more  was  completed  in  1867,  and 
on  August  14,  1868,  the  railway  was  opened  to 
Jacob's  Ladder.^  Before  work  on  it  stopped  that 
year,  construction  was  carried  to  the  Lizzie  Bourne 
monument.  The  road  was  finished  the  following 
year,  being  opened  to  the  Summit  for  business  in 
July.  The  cost  of  construction  and  equipment  was 
$I39»500. 

At  the  time  of  its  completion,  the  nearest  railroad 
station  was  at  Littleton,  twenty-five  miles  distant. 
Every  piece  of  material  for  the  construction  of  the 
railway  and  the  locomotive  and  cars,  had.  to  be 
hauled  through  the  woods,  it  should  be  remembered, 
by  ox  teams. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  beginning  of  the  construc- 
tion of  the  turnpike  to  the  Base.  This  was  completed 
in  1869,  and  for  many  years  afforded  the  only  means 
of  access  to  the  railway,  passengers  being  brought 
by  stage  over  it  from  Fabyan's.  It  was  owned  for 
some  years  by  the  Boston  and  Maine  Railroad,  but 
has  recently  been  turned  over  to  the  State. 

A  word  more  as  to  the  railway's  projector  and 
inventor.  Leaving  Chicago,  he  returned  to  live  in 
New  Hampshire,  settling  at  Littleton  in  1864.  He 
passed  the  closing  years  of  his  life  in  Concord,  where 
he  removed  in  1879  and  where  he  died  in  December, 
1884,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one,  a  public-spirited  and 
highly  respected  citizen.   He  was  asked  to  build  the 

^  This  name  was  transferred  to  the  railroad  from  the  path,  having 
been  given  to  the  steep  crag  at  this  place,  many  years  before  the 
building  of  the  railway. 

241 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

railway  up  the  Rigi  in  Switzerland,  which  is  pat- 
terned to  some  extent  after  the  Mount  Washington 
Railway,  but  he  declined. 

During  the  latter 's  construction,  a  Swiss  engi- 
neer^ visited  the  American  railroad,  and  he  was 
allowed  to  take  back  with  him  drawings  of  the 
machinery  and  track. 

After  the  Swiss  railroad  was  completed  (1871), 
Mr.  Marsh  said  of  it,  "They  have  made  a  much 
better  road  than  mine.  Mine  was  an  experiment. 
When  proved  to  be  a  success,  they  went  ahead  with 
confidence  and  built  a  permanent  road." 

A  noteworthy  incident  of  the  first  season  of  the 
Mount  Washington  Railway  was  the  visit  of  Presi- 
dent Grant,  whose  first  term  had  begun  the  pre- 
ceding March.  His  trip  up  Mount  Washington  was 
made  in  the  course  of  a  tour  through  the  Mountains 
that  summer  with  Mrs.  Grant  and  some  of  their 
children.  Another  episode  of  this  excursion  has  been 

^  This  was  Mr.  Nicholas  Riggenbach,  then  superintendent  of  the 
Central  Swiss  Railway,  who  took  the  first  steam  locomotive  into 
Switzerland  in  1847,  and  who  appears  to  have  independently  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  new  system  of  track  and  locomotives  for  the  as- 
cent of  mountains.  On  August  12,  1863,  he  took  out  a  patent  for  a 
rack  railway  and  a  locomotive  for  operating  the  same,  but  nothing 
further  seems  to  have  been  done  with  the  idea  by  him  until  after  the 
visit  to  America  mentioned  in  the  text.  On  his  return  he  associated 
himself  with  two  others,  got  a  concession,  and  built  the  road  up  the 
Rigi.  The  rack  rail  designed  by  Riggenbach  is  a  distinct  improve- 
ment upon  that  used  by  Marsh.  Instead  of  a  round  tooth,  it  employs 
a  taper  tooth,  which  experience  has  shown  to  be  preferable,  inas- 
much as  it  not  only  insures  safe  locking  of  the  gear  at  different 
depths,  but  resists  more  efficiently  the  tendency  of  the  gear-wheel 
to  climb  the  rack  —  a  further  security  against  derailment.  Riggen- 
bach's  type  of  tooth,  with  modifications,  is  that  now  used  on  rack 
railways.  (From  F.  A.  Talbot's  Railway  Wonders  of  the  World. 
1913-) 

242 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

preserved.^  The  general,  as  is  well  known,  was  a 
great  lover  of  horses.  One  can  imagine,  therefore, 
his  keen  enjoyment,  as  he  sat  on  the  box  with 
the  driver,  Edmund  Cox,  of  a  stage-coach  which 
traveled,  drawn  by  six  horses,  from  the  Sinclair 
House  in  Bethlehem  to  the  Profile  House,  more 
than  eleven  miles,  in  fifty-eight  minutes. 

Accidents  on  the  carriage  road,  so  strong  are  the 
vehicles  and  horses  used  and  so  careful  and  reliable 
the  drivers  employed,  have  been  few.  The  first  by 
which  any  passengers  were  injured,  and  the  only 
serious  one  I  have  found  recorded,  occurred  on  July 
3,  1880,  about  a  mile  below  the  Halfway  House.  A 
company  of  excursionists  from  Michigan  had  been 
visiting  the  Summit  that  day,  and  the  last  party  of 
them  to  descend,  consisting  of  nine  persons,  were 
thrown  violently  into  the  woods  and  on  the  rocks 
by  the  overturning  of  the  six-horse  mountain  wagon 
in  which  they  were  riding.  One  woman  was  in- 
stantly killed  and  several  other  occupants  were 
more  or  less  injured.  The  husband  of  the  dead 
woman  was  riding  at  her  side  and  escaped  with  a 
few  bruises. 

It  seems  that  the  driver,  one  of  the  oldest  and 
most  experienced  on  the  road  and  one  who  had 
himself  uttered  the  warning,  "There  should  be  no 
fooling,  no  chaffing,  and  no  drinking  on  that  road," 
had  failed  to  practice  what  he  preached,  and,  while 
waiting  for  his  party  at  the  Summit,  had  indulged 
in  liquor.    This  lapse,  most  serious  under  the  cir- 

^  Recorded  by  Alice  Bartlett  Stevens  in  the  Granite  Monthly  for 
February,  1903. 

243 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

cumstances,  was  discovered  shortly  after  starting, 
and  the  passengers  thereupon  left  the  wagon  and 
walked  to  the  Halfway  House,  four  miles  down. 
There,  on  being  assured  by  one  of  the  employees  of 
the  Carriage  Road  Company  that  there  was  no 
dangerous  place  below  that  point,  and  on  his  telling 
them  further  that  he  thought  it  would  be  safe  for 
them  to  ride  the  remainder  of  the  way  with  the  same 
driver,  they  resumed  their  seats,  only  to  meet,  a  few 
minutes  later,  in  rounding  a  curve  at  too  great  a 
speed,  with  the  sad  mishap  that  has  been  described. 

As  has  been  already  stated,  no  passenger  has  ever 
been  even  injured  on  the  Railway.  The  only  mishap 
of  any  consequence,  and  a  most  peculiar  one,  oc- 
curred about  the  middle  of  July,  1897,  when  a  train 
consisting  of  a  locomotive,  passenger  car,  and  bag- 
gage car  was  wrecked.  A  heavy  gust  of  wind  struck 
the  train,  which  was  standing  near  the  Summit, 
with  such  force  as  to  start  it  off  down  the  line.  It 
was  found  that  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  down  the 
engine  and  baggage  car  had  jumped  the  track,  had 
turned  over  and  over  while  falling  a  hundred  feet 
or  more  into  the  gulf,  and  had  become  total  wrecks. 
The  man  sent  out  to  investigate  on  a  slide-board 
reported  that  he  saw  nothing  of  the  passenger  car, 
but  it  was  later  discovered  that  this  had  left  the 
track  at  a  curve  near  Jacob's  Ladder,  had  turned 
over,  and  had  been  completely  demolished.  Fortu- 
nately no  one  was  on  board. 

Mention  has  just  been  made  of  the  slide-board. 
This  interesting  contrivance  was  invented  to  meet 
the  need  of  rapid  transit  for  the  workmen  employed 

244 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

in  track  repairing  and  the  like.  By  this  means  an 
experienced  rider  can  go  from  the  Summit  to  the 
Base  in  three  minutes.  The  sHde-board  is  about 
three  feet  long,  rests  lengthwise  on  the  center  rail, 
and  is  grooved  so  as  to  slide  on  it.  The  braking 
mechanism,  by  which  the  board  is  kept  under  such 
perfect  control  that  it  can  be  stopped  almost  in- 
stantly whenever  necessary,  is  very  simple.  On 
either  side  of  the  board  is  pivoted  to  it  a  handle, 
to  which  is  attached,  near  the  pivot,  a  piece  of 
iron  bent  in  a  peculiar  form  so  as  to  project  under- 
neath the  rail.  By  pulling  up  the  handle  this  piece 
of  iron  is  made  to  grip  the  flange  of  the  rail  very 
tightly. 

It  was  formerly  the  practice  for  the  roadmaster 
or  his  assistant  to  descend  on  a  slide-board  before 
the  noon  train  every  day,  going  slowly  enough  to 
make  a  careful  inspection  of  the  track.  The  death 
of  an  employee  in  performing  this  hazardous  act 
a  few  years  ago,  which  accident  cost  the  Railway 
Company  several  thousand  dollars  in  damages  and 
made  evident  the  liability  to  mishaps  of  this  kind, 
has  caused  the  discontinuance  of  the  use  of  this 
dangerous  means  of  conveyance. 

A  picturesque  employment  of  the  slide-boards  in 
former  days  was  as  a  "newspaper  train."  This 
novel  enterprise  was  carried  on  in  the  early  nineties, 
when  the  coaching  parades  at  Bethlehem  and  North 
Conway  were  at  their  height,  and  there  was  thereby 
created  a  great  demand  for  the  issues  of  Among  the 
Clouds,  which  contained  accounts  of  the  festivities. 
So  that  readers  in  those  towns  might  have  copies  of 

245 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  paper  at  their  breakfast  tables,  some  of  the 
skillful  coasters  used  to  transport  the  morning  edi- 
tion down  the  Mountain  before  daylight. 

After  the  completion  of  the  railway,  steps  had 
immediately  to  be  taken  to  remedy  the  woefully 
inadequate  provisions  for  feeding  and  sheltering  vis- 
itors, and,  accordingly,  in  1872,  was  begun  the  build- 
ing of  the  second  "Summit  House,"  the  famous 
structure  which  for  thirty-five  summers  entertained 
so  many  people  of  various  walks  in  life,  —  guides, 
trampers,  railroad  officials,  scientific  and  literary 
men  and  women,  clergymen,  and  just  ordinary 
persons,  —  and  which  had  a  wealth  of  associations 
connected  with  it,  and  especially  clustered  about 
its  office  stove.  The  undertaking  was  financed  by 
Walter  Aiken,  manager  of  the  Mount  Washington 
Railway,  whose  tall,  stalwart  form  and  sterling 
manhood  is  one  of  the  memories  of  the  early  days, 
and  President  John  E.  Lyon,  of  the  Boston,  Concord, 
and  Montreal  Railroad,  whose  contributions  to  the 
development  of  the  Mountains  have  been  already 
mentioned.  The  hotel,  which  was  completed  early 
in  1873  and  opened  in  July  of  that  year,  was  of  plain 
outward  apppearance,  but  of  the  most  rigid  and  solid 
construction  possible  for  a  wooden  building.  The 
difficulties  of  erecting  so  large  a  structure  —  it  could 
accommodate  one  hundred  and  fifty  guests  —  on  a 
site  where  severe  weather  often  prevails,  are  obvious 
as  well  as  are  the  necessities  for  strong  construction 
and  for  anchorage  by  bolts  and  cables.  Two  hundred 
and  fifty  freight  trains  were  required  to  carry  up 
the  lumber,  and  the  cost  of  the  hotel,  exclusive  of 

246 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

the  expense  for  freight  (estimated  at  $10,000),  was 

$56,599.57. 

The  excellence  of  the  construction  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  the  solid  frame  withstood  gales  of 
one  hundred  and  eighty-six  miles  an  hour  by  actual 
record  by  the  anemometer  and  very  likely  of  higher 
unrecorded  rates  when  no  instrument  or  observer 
was  there  to  tell  the  tale.  Its  cheerful  office,  with 
its  great  stove,  was  a  welcome  place  to  many  a 
traveler  arriving  by  railway,  by  carriage  road,  or  by 
trail.  Many  a  day  weather  conditions  were  such 
that  visitors  were  marooned  in  the  office  during 
their  entire  stay  on  the  Summit  and  were  devoutly 
grateful  for  the  hotel's  hospitable  shelter.  Almost 
every  evening  of  the  season  found  a  group  of  trav- 
elers whiling  away  the  time  enjoying  the  genial 
warmth  of  the  stove  and  exchanging  experiences  of 
their  mountain  trips. 

Notables  who  made  longer  or  shorter  stays  there 
at  the  various  times,  as  recalled  by  the  editor  of 
Among  the  Clouds,  were  Lucy  Larcom,  the  poet; 
William  C.  Prime,  editor,  traveler,  author,  and 
angler;  his  sister-in-law,  Annie  Trumbull  Slosson, 
entomologist  and  author,  who  came  year  after  year 
for  longer  and  longer  sojourns  and  who  latterly  re- 
garded the  hotel  as  her  home;  the  botanist,  Edward 
Faxon;  the  entomologist,  J.  H.  Emerton;  E.  C.  and 
W.  H.  Pickering,  the  astronomers ;  the  naturalist  and 
author,  Bradford  Torrey ;  and  among  the  cloth.  Rev. 
Dr.  W.  R.  Richards  and  Rev.  Dr.  Harry  P.  Nichols. 

Day  visitors  of  prominence  were  legion.  Some 
names  of  such,  culled  from  the  pages  of  Among  the 

247 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Clouds  in  1877,  are  those  of  President  Hayes  ^  and 
Mrs.  Hayes,  who,  accompanied  by  WilHam  M. 
Evarts,  Charles  Devens,  and  D.  M.  Key,  of  the 
Cabinet,  made  their  visit  to  the  Summit  on  August 
20;  the  Reverend  and  Mrs.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
on  the  same  day;  Vice-President  Wheeler,  on  Au- 
gust 29,  and  in  September,  Sir  Lyon  Playfair,  the 
eminent  British  statesman  and  scientist.  Other 
noted  visitors  whose  names  are  found  in  the  records 
of  later  years  were  P.  T.  Barnum,  General  Joseph 
Hooker,  General  McClellan,  Lord  Chief  Justice 
Coleridge,  of  England,  who  came  on  August  30, 
1883,  Phillips  Brooks,  Speaker  Cannon,  Lieutenant 
Peary,  and  Sefior  Romero,  the  Mexican  Minister. 
In  1880,  the  eminent  Scottish  professor,  William 
Garden  Blaikie,  spent  "a  night  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton," an  account  of  which  experience  he  gave  in  a 
typically  British  article  with  this  title,  published  in 
Good  Words  in  June,  1881.  He  went  up  by  train  and 
walked  down  the  carriage  road.  As  there  was  a 
cloud  on  top  when  he  arrived,  he  walked  down  be- 
low to  see  the  view  and  the  sunset.  "Nothing  could 
be  finer,"  he  declared,  than  the  dawn  he  wit- 
nessed. 

The  versatile  English  writer  and  scientist  of  Ca- 
nadian birth.  Grant  Allen,  was  another  foreign 
visitor  to  Mount  Washington  who  deserves  a  pass- 
ing mention.  From  his  graphic  and  often  facetious 
account  of  his  brief  visit  to  the  Mountains  in  1886, 
written  for  Longman's  Magazine,  we  learn  that  he 
made  the  ascent  by  train  and  that  he  was  much 
*  This  was  President  Hayes's  fifth  visit  to  the  Summit. 
248 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

interested  in  the  botany  —  his  specialty  —  and  the 
gastronomy  of  the  region. 

The  first  proprietor  of  this  new  Summit  House 
was  Captain  John  W.  Dodge,  of  Hampton  Falls, 
New  Hampshire,  who  also  became  postmaster  by 
Government  appointment  when  the  Mount  Wash- 
ington post-ofhce  was  established  July  i,  1874,  ^^d 
who  died  in  June  of  the  following  year.  For  nine 
seasons,  a  period  ending  with  1883,  his  widow,  Har- 
riet D.  Dodge,  successfully  managed  the  house. 
Charles  G.  Emmons  had  charge  for  the  two  following 
seasons,  and  from  1886  to  the  end,  the  hotel  was 
leased  to  the  Barron,  Merrill,  and  Barron  Company 
by  the  railway  company  into  whose  hands,  after  the 
deaths  of  Mr.  Aiken  and  Mr.  Lyon,  their  interest 
passed.  The  Summit  House  was  enlarged  by  the 
addition  of  an  ell  in  1874  ^^^  extensive  improve- 
ments were  made  in  1895,  1901,  and  1905. 

From  time  to  time,  as  need  arose  or  circumstances 
required,  buildings  for  various  uses  were  erected  on 
the  Summit  until  a  considerable  summer  settlement 
had  been  created.  Besides  such  essential  structures 
as  the  train  shed,  built  in  1870  and  subsequently 
blown  down  in  a  winter  gale  and  rebuilt,^  and  the 
stage  office,  erected  in  1878  by  the  owners  of  the 
carriage  road  for  the  accommodation  of  the  agents 
and  drivers  of  the  stage  line  and  sometimes  used 
as  sleeping  quarters  by  trampers,  several  buildings 
came  into  existence  for  special   purposes,   which 

*  A  third  train  shed  —  the  one  burned  —  was  built  about  1890. 
The  second  one,  having  become  disused  and  dilapidated,  was  taken 
down  in  1904. 

249 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

structures  demand  more  attention  than  mere  men- 
tion, either  because  of  their  uses  or  because  of  their 
associations. 

When  in  May,  1871,  the  Government  took  up  the 
work  of  maintaining  weather-bureau  service  on  the 
Summit,  the  observers,  who  were  at  that  period 
detailed  for  this  duty  the  year  round  by  the  Signal 
Service  of  the  Army,  were  quartered  in  the  old  rail- 
way station,  but  in  1874  ^  wooden  building,  one 
and  a  half  stories  high,  the  so-called  "Signal  Sta- 
tion," was  erected  for  their  use. 

At  the  beginning  of  1880,  the  buildings  on  the 
Summit  were  the  old  Summit  House,  which,  as  has 
been  stated,  was  then  used  as  a  dormitory  for  the 
hotel  employees,  the  old  Tip-Top  House,  the  front 
room  of  which  then  served  as  the  printing-office  of 
Among  the  Clouds,  the  stage  office,  the  train  shed, 
the  Signal  Station,  and  the  Summit  House.  Two 
more  buildings  were  added  to  the  group  during  the 
years  soon  following,  to  stand  with  the  others  until 
that  fateful  evening  in  June,  1908,  when  the  results 
of  so  many  years*  development  were  reduced  in  a 
few  hours  to  ashes  and  blackened  ruins. 

In  the  year  first  named  the  railway  company 
erected  a  strong  wooden  tower,  twenty-seven  feet 
high  and  of  pyramidal  shape,  on  high  ground  near 
the  southwest  corner  of  the  Summit  House.  It 
overlooked  all  the  buildings  and  became  a  favor- 
ite observatory.  For  several  summers  it  was  used 
by  the  United  States  Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey 
in  the  triangulation  of  the  region.  In  1892,  the  tower 
was  carried  up  another  story  and,  during  that  season 

250 


SUMMIT   HOUSE   AND   OBSERVATORY,    MOUNT   WASHINGTON 
ABOUT    1S95 


THh.    NEW    SLMMir    HOUSE   1  )N    MOUNT   WASHINGTON 
ERECTED   AND   OPENED    IN    191J 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

only,  a  powerful  searchlight  was  operated  on  it. 
Having  fallen  into  decay  and  having  become  un- 
safe, this,  the  second  observatory  built  on  the 
Mountain,  was  pulled  down  in  1902. 

Four  years  after  the  erection  of  the  tower  came 
the  last  addition  to  the  group  of  buildings.  This 
was  a  home  for  the  Mountain  newspaper,  Among 
the  Clouds,  which  had  outgrown  its  quarters  in  the 
old  Tip-Top  House.  In  the  autumn  of  1884  was 
built  the  compact  and  cozy  little  office  so  well  known 
to  visitors  for  nearly  twenty-five  years.  It  contained 
a  fully  equipped  printing-plant,  with  a  Hoe  cylinder 
press  and  a  steam  engine  (superseded  a  short  time 
before  the  great  fire  by  a  seven  horse-power  gasoline 
engine).  Many  a  tourist  here  saw  for  the  first  time 
a  newspaper  plant  in  operation. 

The  same  year  saw  another  change  in  the  Moun- 
tain buildings,  for,  as  has  been  recorded  before,  the 
old  Summit  House  was  that  year  taken  down,  a 
wooden  cottage  being  erected  in  its  stead.  Mention 
having  just  been  made  of  the  printing-office  of 
Among  the  Clottds,  and  the  establishment  of  that 
newspaper  belonging  chronologically  to  the  period 
now  under  review,  accounts  of  this  unique  jour- 
nalistic enterprise  and  also  of  another  similar  un- 
dertaking may  perhaps  be  interjected  at  this 
point. 

The  distinction  of  being  the  first  and  for  many 
years  the  only  newspaper  printed  regularly  on  the 
top  of  a  mountain,  and  the  further  distinction  of 
being  the  oldest  summer-resort  newspaper  in  Amer- 
ica, belong  to  Mount  Washington's  daily  journal. 

251 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

It  was  founded  in  1877  by  Mr.  Henry  M.  Burt,  of 
Springfield,  Massachusetts,  who  had  been  connected 
with  the  Springfield  Republican  and  various  other 
papers,  among  them  the  New  England  Homestead, 
which  he  founded.  In  1866,  Mr.  Burt  published 
"Burt's  Guide  to  the  Connecticut  Valley  and  the 
White  Mountains,"  the  preparation  of  which 
brought  him  first  to  Mount  Washington.  While 
spending  a  stormy  day  at  the  Summit  House,  in 
1874,  the  thought  of  printing  a  newspaper  on  top  of 
the  Mountain  came  to  him,  resulting  in  the  starting 
of  Among  the  Clouds  three  years  later,  the  first  issue 
appearing  on  July  18,  1877.  This  unique  and  daring 
undertaking  gained  the  admiration  of  all  visitors, 
and  the  paper  with  so  peculiarly  appropriate  a 
name  soon  filled  a  recognized  position  in  White 
Mountain  life.  For  eight  summers  it  was  printed  in 
the  old  Tip-Top  House.  Thereafter  until  1908,  it  was 
published  in  its  own  building,  the  erection  of  which 
in  1884  has  been  recorded.  The  genial  editor,  during 
the  twenty-two  years  in  which  he  conducted  the 
paper,  gained  a  host  of  personal  friends  among  those 
frequenting  the  White  Mountains  and  those  carry- 
ing on  business  in  the  region.  Since  his  death  in 
March,  1899,  his  son,  Frank  H.  Burt,  has  been  its 
editor  and  publisher. 

Before  the  great  fire  of  1908  deprived  Among  the 
Clouds  of  its  well-equipped  and  appropriately  lo- 
cated home,  two  editions  were  printed  daily,  the 
principal  one  being  issued  in  the  early  morning.  At 
I  P.M.  the  noon  edition,  containing  a  list  of  the  names 
of  visitors  arriving  by  the  morning  train,  was  ready 

252 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

for  purchase  as  a  souvenir  by  the  traveler  before 
the  train  departed  on  the  downward  trip. 

Besides  recording  all  events  of  interest  relating 
to  Mount  Washington,  together  with  news  of  the 
leading  Mountain  resorts,  many  articles  of  historical 
and  scientific  value  have  appeared  in  its  columns, 
all  of  which  contents  have  combined  to  make  a 
complete  file  of  Among  the  Clouds  at  any  time,  and 
now  especially  since  the  fire,  a  treasure  indeed. 

In  view  of  the  staggering  blow  that  the  paper  re- 
ceived in  the  loss  of  its  home  and  equipment  before 
the  opening  of  the  season  of  1908,  it  was  thought 
best  to  omit  for  that  summer  the  daily  edition, 
which  was  done.  Thus,  for  the  first  time  in  a  gener- 
ation the  history  of  the  summer's  events  had  to  go 
untold.  The  enterprising  editors,  however,  far  from 
being  discouraged  and  from  giving  up  all  for  lost 
even  that  season,  showed  their  quality  by  preparing 
a  "magazine  number,"  containing  a  very  complete 
and  interesting  record  of  the  fire  by  pen  and  cam- 
era, and  many  facts  and  reminiscences  concerning 
Mount  Washington. 

The  failure  to  rebuild  the  settlement  upon  the 
Summit  is  responsible  for  Among  the  Clouds  not 
being  able  to  regain  its  ancient  and  proper  seat,  but 
publication  was  resumed  on  July  5,  19 10,  and  the 
paper  is  now  temporarily  established  at  the  Base. 

The  other  journalistic  enterprise  referred  to  is 
that  of  a  newspaper  long  widely  known  among 
Mountain  visitors.  The  White  Mountain  Echo  and 
Tourists'  Register,  the  founding  of  which  is  almost 
contemporary  with  that  of  Among  the  Clouds.    It 

253 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

was  in  1878,  at  Bethlehem,  that  The  Echo  was 
started,  the  date  of  the  first  issue  being  July  13, 
and  it  has  continued  to  be  published  there  since. 
It  is  not,  however,  a  local  paper,  but  is  devoted  to 
the  interests  of  the  entire  White  Mountain  region. 
Its  founder  and  editor  for  twenty  years,  Mr.  Mar- 
kinfield  Addey,  had  an  interesting  career.  He  was 
an  Englishman,  who,  after  serving  in  the  publish- 
ing house  of  Chapman  and  Hall,  had  become  a  pub- 
lisher on  his  own  account.  In  1857,  when  he  was 
thirty-nine  years  old,  his  eyesight  failed  and  he  re- 
tired from  business.  The  following  year  he  came 
to  America,  where  his  eyesight  improved.  Twenty 
years  later  he  founded  The  White  Mountain  Echo. 
Having  entirely  lost  his  sight  in  1898,  he  gave  up 
the  editorship  of  The  Echo,  and  returned  to  England, 
settling  at  Louth,  in  Lincolnshire.  There  he  lived 
twelve  years  longer,  dying  November  18,  1910,  at 
the  age  of  ninety- two.  He  was  "a  bright,  cheerful 
little  man,  of  a  very  sanguine  nature,"  always  active 
in  promoting  by  his  pen  and  his  influence  the  good 
of  the  Mountain  region  he  had  come  to  love  so  well. 
He  lived  to  know  of  the  carrying-out  of  many  of  the 
improvements  he  so  earnestly  and  so  long  before 
had  advocated. 

The  only  White  Mountain  summit  other  than 
Mount  Washington,  upon  which  anything  more 
than  a  temporary  shelter  exists  to-day,  is  Mount 
Moosilauke.  The  beautiful  Mount  Kearsarge  ^  of 
the  Bartlett-Conway  region  formerly  bore  upon  its 

*  Now  to  be  called,  in  accordance  with  a  decision  (1915)  of  the 
United  States  Board  of  Geographic  Names,  "Mount  Pequawket." 

254 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

top  a  small  hotel,  built,  in  1848  or  1849,^  by  Caleb 
Frye,  Nathaniel  Frye,  John  C.  Davis,  and  Moses 
Chandler,  which  was  kept  open  for  several  years 
and  then  fell  into  disuse.  Andrew  Dinsmore  bought 
it  in  1868  or  1869,  put  it  in  thorough  repair,  and  re- 
opened it.  The  weather-beaten  old  structure  was 
blown  down  in  a  tempest  in  November,  1883.  Mr. 
Dinsmore  collected  the  fragments  and  rebuilt  the 
structure  on  a  smaller  scale.  This  has  been  aban- 
doned of  late  years  and  is  rapidly  falling  into  decay. 
It  is  now  the  property  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain 
Club,  the  building  and  ten  acres  on  the  summit 
having  been  given  to  the  Club  in  1902  by  Mrs. 
C.  E.  Clay,  of  Chatham,  New  Hampshire.  A  small 
one-room  house  of  logs  and  poles  was  built  on  Mount 
Moriah  by  Colonel  Hitchcock,  of  the  Alpine  House, 
probably  in  1854.  A  road  up  having  been  con- 
structed under  his  auspices,  that  mountain  for  a 
time  rivaled  Mount  Washington  in  popularity.  In 
the  sixties  a  rude  house  for  the  protection  of  climbers 
stood  on  the  crest  of  Mount  Lafayette,  but,  except 
for  the  low  stone  walls,  it  had  disappeared  by 

1875.' 

Moosilauke  was  first  climbed  by  Chase  Whitcher, 
who,  in  1773,  when  a  boy  of  twenty,  came  from 
Salisbury,  Massachusetts,  and  settled  in  Warren, 
devoting  himself  to  hunting.  On  this  occasion  he 
was  following  a  moose.   He  is  said  to  have  thought 

^  So  Mrs.  Mason.  Sweetser  says,  "built  in  1845." 
*  The  substantial  Peak  House  on  Mount  Chocorua,  which  was 
built  in  the  early  nineties,  was  not  located  on  the  summit,  but  at 
the  base  of  the  cone.  This  house  was  blown  down  on  September  26, 
1915- 

255 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  summit  "a  cold  place."  ^  Mrs.  Daniel  Patch, 
the  first  white  woman  who  ever  stood  upon  this 
summit,  evidently  had  a  different  reception  as  to 
weather  from  that  given  to  Whitcher,  for  she  thought 
it  a  pleasant  place,  and,  having  brought  her  teapot 
with  her,  made  herself  a  cup  of  tea  over  a  fire 
kindled  from  bleached  hackmatack  boughs. 

The  Tip-Top  House  of  Mount  Moosilauke  —  it 
was  first  called  the  "Prospect  House"  and  is  also 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  "Summit  House"  — 
was  originally  a  low  and  massive  stone  building, 
erected  in  i860  by  Darius  Swain  and  James  Clem- 
ent. It  stands  on  the  south  side  of  the  crest  or 
north  peak. 

The  house  was  opened  on  July  4,  i860,  with  a 
grand  celebration,  in  which  more  than  a  thousand 
people  took  part.  Music  was  furnished  by  the  New- 

^  The  first  printed  account  of  an  ascent  appeared  in  the  American 
Monthly  Magazine  for  November,  1817,  in  an  article  on  "The  Altitude 
of  Moose-Hillock  in  New  Hampshire,  ascertained  barometrically," 
by  Alden  Partridge,  Captain  of  Engineers.  Captain  Partridge,  who 
was  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  founded  in  1820  a  military  school  at 
Norwich,  Vermont,  which  was  incorporated  in  1834  as  Norwich 
University.  He  was  president  of  it  until  1843.  He  appears  twice  in 
the  pages  of  the  Crawford  History.  In  the  autumn  of  1821,  he  came 
to  Mr.  Crawford's  with  a  number  of  cadets,  and  Mr.  Crawford,  being 
unable  on  account  of  lameness  to  act  as  guide,  Mr.  Rosebrook,  his 
nearest  neighbor,  was  sent  for  to  pilot  the  party  up  Mount  Wash- 
ington. Again,  on  October  2,  1824,  Captain  Partridge  came  to 
Crawford's  with  fifty-two  cadets.  Taking  a  part  of  them  with  him, 
he  went  to  "  the  camp"  for  the  night,  so  that  he  might  have  the 
next  day  for  making  some  barometrical  observations.  The  remainder 
of  the  cadets,  who  overran  the  somewhat  meager  accommodations 
of  Crawford's  house,  —  some  sleeping  in  beds,  some  on  the  floor, 
some  in  the  barn,  and  some,  for  a  time,  even  out-of-doors  beside 
the  fence,  —  made  the  ascent  the  next  day,  meeting  the  captain  and 
his  companions  coming  down.  Captain  Partridge  computed  the 
height  of  Mount  Washington  to  be  6234  feet. 

256 


SUMMIT  OF   MOUNT   WASHINGTON    IN    1854 
Tip-Top  House,  Old  Summit  House,  and  First  Observatory 


Copyright  h)  Jackion,  igij 

TIP-TOP   HOUSE   ON    MOUNT   MOOSILAUKE 


MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

bury  brass  band,  and  the  citizens,  a  whole  regiment 
of  them,  marshaled  by  Colonel  Stevens  M.  Dow, 
marched  and  countermarched  upon  the  mountain- 
top.  The  Honorable  Thomas  J.  Smith  delivered  a 
patriotic  oration,  and  the  celebration  concluded  with 
a  performance  by  a  company  of  real  Indians,  who 
sang,  danced,  and  sounded  the  war-whoop.  Another 
incident  of  the  day  was  the  driving  of  a  large  two- 
horse  pleasure  wagon  up  the  mountain  by  Daniel 
Q.  Clement. 

William  Little  was  the  first  landlord  of  the  Pros- 
pect House.  Following  him,  Ezekiel  A.  Clement 
kept  it  for  one  season,  and  afterwards  James  Clem- 
ent was  "mine  host "  for  years  and  years.  The  open- 
ing of  the  Prospect  House  stimulated  several  citizens 
of  Warren  to  begin  the  keeping  of  summer  boarders. 

An  occurrence  of  the  first  season  of  the  hotel  was 
the  visit,  on  August  29,  of  Philip  Hadley,  ninety 
years  old,  who  walked  all  the  way  from  his  home  in 
Bradford,  Vermont,  to  the  top  of  the  mountain. 

The  Moosilauke  Mountain  Road  Company  was 
incorporated  in  June,  1870,  by  John  E.  Lyon, 
Joseph  A.  Dodge,  Daniel  Q.  Clement,  Samuel  B. 
Page,  David  G.  Marsh,  G.  F.  Putnam,  and  James 
Clement.  The  length  of  the  road,  which  was  im- 
mediately put  under  construction,  is  four  and  a 
third  miles.  The  ascent  is  not  difficult,  and  the  road 
is  kept  in  good  condition.  It  starts  from  Merrill's 
Mountain  House,  at  the  base  of  the  mountain,  and 
meets  the  long  ridge  a  short  distance  north  of  the 
south  peak,  and  thence  follows  the  ridge  in  a  north- 
erly direction. 

257 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

After  the  completion  of  the  carriage  road,  the 
number  of  visitors  to  the  summit  was,  naturally, 
much  increased.  In  consequence  the  house  was 
enlarged  in  1872  by  the  addition  of  a  wooden  ell  a 
story  and  a  half  high,  and  in  1881  a  wooden  super- 
structure was  added  to  the  original  stone  house,  the 
capacity  being  thus  raised  to  from  thirty-five  to 
fifty  guests.  The  remoteness  of  Mount  Moosilauke 
from  the  centers  of  White  Mountain  summer  life 
and  its  position  off  the  main  routes  of  travel  have 
made  its  summit  a  place  far  less  visited  by  fre- 
quenters of  the  Mountains  and  tourists  than  it 
would  otherwise  be  and  less  than  it  merits  for  its 
own  beautiful  configuration  ^  and  for  the  wonderful 
views  in  all  directions. 

*  "With  one  bold  curve  it  [the  ridge]  sweeps  away  in  air. . .  . 
There  can  be  nothing  finer  than  this  curving  crest,"  wrote  the  late 
Colonel  Higginson  in  1880. 


XII 

some  noteworthy  white  mountain 
"characters" 

A  NAME  sometimes  given  to  the  Summit  of  Mount 
Washington  in  the  early  days  was  "Trinity  Height," 
which  must  have  been  current  before  1845,  as  it 
occurs  in  the  "Crawford  History,"  published  in  that 
year.  It  has  also  been  handed  down  in  connection 
with  a  peculiar  episode  recorded  by  Mr.  Spaulding. 
In  1850,  a  man  afflicted  with  religious  mania  re- 
garded himself  as  having  obtained  by  lawful  title 
ownership  of  the  top  of  Mount  Washington,  and, 
erecting  gateways  upon  all  the  bridle  paths,  he 
exacted  one  dollar  as  toll  from  every  person  who 
ascended.  He  also  issued  in  the  papers  of  the  day 
a  flaming  proclamation,  of  which  the  following  is 
said  to  be  a  true  copy :  — 

PROCLAMATION. 

FOURTH   OF  JULY   ON 
THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS. 

There  will  be  a  solemn  congregation  upon  Trinity 
Height,  or  Summit  of  Mount  Washington,  on  the  Fourth 
Day  of  July,  a.d.  1851,  and  ist  year  of  the  Theocracy,  or 
Jewish  Christianity,  to  dedicate  to  the  coming  of  the 
Ancient  of  Days,  in  the  glory  of  his  Kingdom,  and  to  the 
marriage  of  the  Lamb;  and  the  literal  organization  in 
this  generation  of  the  Christian  or  purple  and  royal  De- 

259 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

mocracy  (let  no  man  profane  that  name!),  or  the  thousand 
thousands,  and  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  of  the 
people  of  the  Saints  of  the  most  high  God  of  every  nation 
and  Denomination  into  the  greatness  of  God's  kingdom 
and  dominion  under  the  whole  heavens ;  and  there  will  be 
a  contribution  for  this  purpose  from  all  who  are  willing,  in 
the  beauty  of  holiness,  from  the  dawn  of  that  day. 
John  Coffin  Nazro, 

Israel  of  Jerusalem. 

"The  appointed  fourth  of  July  was,"  says  Mr. 
Spaulding  in  his  book,  "as  dark  and  rainy  as  any, 
perhaps,  that  ever  shrouded  Mount  Washington  in 
wildly-flying  clouds ;  and  Nazro,  meeting  with  strong 
opposition  in  toll-gathering,  relinquished  his  temple- 
building  designs,  and,  throwing  away  his  gate-keys 
to  the  entrance  of  this  mighty  altar,  retired  to 
United  States  service,  where,  perchance,  he  may  be 
now  plotting  the  way  to  fortune  among  the  clouds." 

Years  after  the  erection  of  the  old  Tip-Top  House, 
a  wrinkled,  tanned,  thin-faced  man,  who  signed, 
"John  C.  Nazro,  U.S.N.,"  was  one  day  among  the 
crowd  registered  at  the  hotel.  Chaplain  Nazro 
stated  that  the  object  of  his  visit  was  to  collect  the 
rents  from  those  who  were  trespassing  upon  his 
rights.  His  friends,  anticipating  personal  injury  to 
him  if  he  pressed  his  claims,  dissuaded  him  from 
doing  so.  Being  told  by  the  occupiers  of  the  houses 
that  they  paid  annual  rent  to  David  Pingree,  of 
Salem,  Massachusetts,  he  took  that  name  and 
address,  but  nothing  was  ever  heard  further  from 
him. 

It  appears  that  Nazro's  claim  to  the  top  of  the 
Mountain  originated  in  a  joke  practiced  upon  him 

260 


WHITE  MOUNTAIN  CHARACTERS 

by  Thomas  Crawford,  with  whom  he  sojourned  at 
the  Notch  House  for  some  time.  Mr.  Crawford 
proposed  to  give  him,  in  exchange  for  the  manu- 
script of  a  history  of  the  White  Mountains,  a  good 
title  deed  to  the  Summit  of  Mount  Washington, 
and,  upon  the  manuscript  being  forthcoming,  a  writ- 
ten agreement  was  entered  into,  Crawford  little 
thinking  that  any  action  would  be  taken  in  con- 
nection with  it.  The  deed  was,  however,  duly  reg- 
istered in  the  Coos  County  Registry  of  Deeds  at 
Lancaster,  and  possession  was  then  taken  of  the 
property  in  the  manner  already  related. 

A  peculiar  character  whom  many  people  still  re- 
member was  the  "Man  at  the  Pool,"  John  Merrill. 
In  his  time,  indeed,  he  was  as  much  an  object  of 
interest  as  that  Franconia-Notch  attraction  itself. 
According  to  his  own  account  he  was  born  in  Bristol, 
New  Hampshire,  in  1816  or  thereabouts.  In  the 
course  of  his  wanderings,  he  came  to  the  Pool  in 
1853,  and  on  this  first  visit  he  happened  to  meet 
a  party  of  forty  sight-seers  who  wished  to  get  near 
to  the  fall.  To  accommodate  them  he  set  to  work 
and  constructed  a  rude  boat,  which  he  lowered  down 
to  the  river  by  means  of  a  rope.  Thus,  by  chance  he 
found  what  was  to  be  his  summer  vocation  for  many 
years,  as  he  was  induced  to  return  annually,  and 
thus  became  an  institution  at  the  Pool.  He  spent 
his  summers  there  until  about  1887.  His  winters 
he  was  accustomed  to  pass  in  Wisconsin,  from  which 
place  The  White  Mountain  Echo  last  heard  from  him 
in  1888,  when  he  made  a  request  that  the  paper 
might  be  sent  to  him. 

261 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

From  the  Pool  he  carried  away  annually  enough 
money  to  provide  a  comfortable  living  for  the  rest 
of  the  year.  Indeed,  it  is  said  that  the  gratuities 
given  him  by  tourists  for  paddling  them  over  the 
Pool  and  for  expounding  to  them  his  cosmogony  were 
in  the  aggregate  far  from  inconsiderable.  While  he 
was  undoubtedly  an  oddity,  it  is  hinted  that  there 
was  method  in  his  peculiarity,  some  of  his  notions 
and  characteristics  being  assumed  for  their  value  in 
extracting  money  from  visitors  to  this  beauty  spot. 

Visitors  to  Bethlehem  in  the  seventies  and  earlier 
used  to  see  or  hear  about  the  aged  eccentric,  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  Gay,  who  celebrated  his  eighty-second 
birthday  there,  July  i6,  1878.  Although  born  in 
Old  Ipswich,  Massachusetts,  he  had  at  that  time 
lived  eighty-one  years  in  Bethlehem,  his  family 
having  been  the  seventh  to  arrive  in  the  town.  In 
1855,  he  built  a  one-story  loosely  constructed  building 
in  the  beeches  opposite  the  Maplewood  Inn.  Not 
only  was  the  man  himself  an  oddity,  but  his  "cha- 
teau" as  well.  Its  interior,  his  front  garden,  and 
every  nook  and  cranny  in  the  vicinity  of  his  domi- 
cile formed  together  a  curiosity-shop  of  accumulated 
fragments.  He  followed  the  occupation  of  farming 
all  his  life,  and  entirely  lost  one  eye  by  an  accident 
which  happened  to  him  while  working  in  the  field. 
"If  I  had  n't  been  a  born  philosopher,"  he  is  said  to 
have  remarked  on  one  occasion,  "  I  should  have 
been  a  subject  for  the  lunatic  asylum."  Questioned 
as  to  his  peculiar  name,  he  averred  that  it  was  given 
to  him  by  his  mother,  and  declared  that  it  "suits 
me  and  I  have  always  borne  it." 

262 


WHITE  MOUNTAIN  CHARACTERS 

There  died  near  the  end  of  April,  1912,  the  most 
picturesque  of  latter-day  White  Mountain  charac- 
ters, "English  Jack,"  known  to  thousands  of  vis- 
itors to  the  region  as  the  "Hermit  of  the  White 
Mountains"  or  the  "Crawford  Notch  Hermit." 
Jack  spent  his  summers  in  an  old  shanty,  which 
became  known  as  the  "House  that  Jack  Built," 
and  which  was  situated,  at  no  great  distance  from 
the  highway,  in  the  woods  above  the  Gate  of  the 
Notch.  His  house  —  "ship"  he  preferred  to  call  it 
—  was  reached  by  paths  from  several  directions, 
signboards  indicating  the  way  thither.  Here  in  a 
low-ceilinged  room  Jack  received  his  visitors.  From 
the  sale  of  picture  postcards  of  himself,  of  a  booklet 
containing  what  purports  to  be  his  life-story,  told 
in  rhyme  by  James  E.  Mitchell,  and  of  other  souve- 
nirs, he  acquired  a  considerable  revenue. 

He  usually  had  some  trout  in  a  small  aquarium 
just  outside  his  door.  Besides  fish,  it  was  commonly 
reported  that  snakes  were  sometimes  articles  of 
diet  with  him.^  Asked  about  this  rather  queer  taste 
attributed  to  him,  he  replied,  "Well,  they  never 
ketched  me  at  it,  anyhow."  For  a  beverage  other 
than  the  cool  sparkling  water  of  the  near-by  brook 
or  spring.  Jack  brewed  a  kind  of  beer  out  of  hops 
and  roots  which  grew  near  his  hut,  with  which  stim- 
ulant he  sometimes  regaled  his  visitors. 

This  singular  individual,  whose  real  name  was 
John  Alfred  Vials  (or  Viles),  was  ninety  years  old 
when  he  died. 

1  Among  the  Clouds  for  July  25,  1877,  tells  of  his  eating  half  of  an 
uncooked  striped  snake,  "with  apparent  relish."  This  was  done  in 
the  presence  of  a  party  of  people  from  the  Crawford  House. 

263 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

According  to  the  "Story  of  Jack,"  he  was  born  in 
London  and  left  an  orphan  at  twelve,  with  one 
pound  in  gold  as  his  whole  fortune  and  with  the 
sole  ambition  of  going  to  sea.  For  days  and  days  he 
frequented  the  docks  seeking  an  opportunity  to  ship 
as  cabin-boy,  but  in  vain.  Nobody  would  take  him, 
and  at  last,  tired  and  homesick,  he  sat  down  to  cry. 
A  five-year-old  girl  came  toddling  up  and  told  him 
not  to  cry,  saying  that  she  was  looking  for  her 
father's  ship  and  that  she  was  lost  as  well  as  he. 
Hand  in  hand,  Jack  and  little  Mary  walked  along 
the  hot  street,  a  sad  pair.  Mary  suddenly  saw  her 
father  on  top  of  a  passing  omnibus,  but  he  did  not 
hear  her  call  to  him,  so  occupied  was  he  in  talking  with 
his  sailor  mate.  With  quickness  of  mind  and  action, 
Jack  pushed  Mary  through  a  door  and  ran  after 
the  omnibus,  which  he  caught  and  mounted,  blurt- 
ing out,  "Your  little  girl  is  gone!" 

At  that  the  father  at  once  started  off  with  Jack 
to  find  Mary,  which  they  did  to  the  father's  and 
little  daughter's  great  joy.  When  Jack  told  his  tale, 
the  grateful  Bill  Simmonds  took  the  friendless  lad 
home  with  him,  and  he  and  his  wife  cared  for  him. 
When  Bill  went  to  sea  again,  he  got  Jack  a  berth 
as  cabin-boy  on  his  ship.  After  sailing  together  for 
eight  years  in  different  ships.  Bill  and  Jack,  who 
had  by  this  time  become  an  able  seaman,  shipped 
in  the  good  ship  Nelson  for  the  Indian  Ocean.  Jack, 
Mary,  and  her  mother  had  forebodings  that  all 
would  not  be  well  on  this  voyage,  but  the  men 
laughed  them  off  and  joined  the  crew. 

Nothing  untoward  happened  until  the  ship  was 
264 


WHITE  MOUNTAIN  CHARACTERS 

in  the  Indian  Ocean,  when  one  Sunday  afternoon 
a  terrible  gale  struck  it.  After  running  for  hours 
before  the  hurricane,  the  ship  was  wrecked  upon  a 
small  desert  island.  Jack,  Bill,  and  eleven  others 
were  all  that  were  saved  out  of  the  crew  of  forty- 
two.  Water,  fortunately,  was  found,  but  the  only 
food  to  be  had,  after  a  water-soaked  cask  of  bread 
was  consumed,  consisted  of  mussels,  crabs,  limpets, 
snakes,  and  the  like.  Before  the  rainy  season  came 
on,  disease  and  death  had  reduced  the  company  to 
four.  For  nineteen  months  the  four  lived  on  what 
they  could  pick  up  on  the  barren  shore,  and  then 
Bill  succumbed,  his  dying  wish  being  that  Jack 
would  look  after  his  wife  and  Mary  and  tell  them 
about  his  end. 

A  week  or  so  after  Bill's  death,  there  came  a 
violent  hurricane  and  when  the  storm  had  cleared 
off  a  sail  was  seen.  The  shipwrecked  men's  signal 
had  been  seen  also,  and  the  ship,  an  American  one, 
rescued  them.  Jack's  two  companions  died  before 
they  could  reach  home,  and  he  alone  of  all  the 
Nelson's  company  returned  alive  to  London.  When 
he  had  reported  to  the  owners  the  fate  of  the  ship, 
Jack  started  in  search  of  Mary  and  her  mother. 
After  many  days  he  learned  that  Bill's  wife  was 
dead  and  that  Mary  had  been  taken  to  the  work- 
house. Jack  at  once  took  her  out  and  placed  her  in 
a  school,  paying  her  board  for  a  year,  and  then  took 
ship  on  a  vessel  bound  for  Hongkong.  All  went  well 
with  the  sailor  both  on  the  outgoing  and  on  the 
return  voyage.  Immediately  after  the  ship's  arrival 
at  Liverpool,  the  anxious  Jack  took  the  train  for 

265 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

London.  When,  however,  he  reached  the  school,  he 
received  the  heart-crushing  news  that  Mary  had 
died  just  a  month  before. 

Eventually,  and  against  his  wish,  Jack  recovered 
from  the  severe  sickness  caused  by  this  blow  to  his 
hope  and  love.  He  then  joined  the  navy,  with  the 
thought  that  death  might  overtake  him  in  that 
service,  but  although  he  fought  in  many  skirmishes 
and  battles  his  life  was  spared  through  all.  He  tells 
in  the  "Story"  of  fighting  in  Africa  to  free  the 
slaves,  of  going  with  Inglefield  to  search  for  Sir 
John  Franklin's  crew  in  the  frozen  North,  and  of 
serving  through  the  Crimean  War  and  in  the  Indian 
Mutiny.  After  traveling  land  and  sea  for  many 
years.  Jack  left  old  England  and  came  to  America. 
Drifting  to  the  Crawford  Notch  to  work  on  the  rail- 
road, he  came  to  like  the  region  so  much  that  he 
took  up  the  life  of  a  hermit  there  in  the  summer 
months.  He  used  to  spend  his  winters  hunting,  trap- 
ping, and  making  souvenirs  to  sell  to  his  summer 
visitors.  Latterly,  in  the  winter.  Jack  lived  with  a 
family  at  Twin  Mountain. 

He  was  well  read,  it  is  said,  in  history  and  litera- 
ture. He  had  spent  much  time  and  money  in  search- 
ing through  advertisements  and  otherwise  for  his 
relatives,  but,  as  he  met  with  no  success  in  this,  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  all  dead. 
He  had  a  kind  heart.  One  way  in  which  he  mani- 
fested this  was  by  assisting  orphans  and  other  un- 
fortunates among  the  Mountains. 


XIII 

CASUALTIES  ON  THE   PRESIDENTIAL   RANGE  — 

THE   TERRIBLE   EXPERIENCE   OF   DR.   BALL 

—  SOME   DESTRUCTIVE  LANDSLIDES 

In  the  summer  months  the  ascent  of  Mount 
Washington  or  the  traversing  of  the  Presidential 
Range  is,  if  ordinary  prudence  be  exercised,  at- 
tended with  only  a  trifling  element  of  danger;  just 
enough,  it  may  be  thought,  to  give  a  little  added 
zest  to  the  pleasures  attending  the  excursion.  The 
trails,  moreover,  are  now  so  well  worn  and  marked 
that  guides  are  not  needed.  Indeed,  if  climbers 
would  refrain  from  tramping  alone,  there  would  be 
almost  no  danger  at  all.  A  piece  of  recklessness  on 
the  part  of  a  climber,  an  accident,  and  the  remote 
chance  of  being  overtaken  by  a  storm  are  the  causes 
of  any  peril  which  may  be  attached  to  the  trip. 
The  contingency  of  a  cold  and  blinding  storm  above 
the  tree-line  is,  of  course,  much  greater  in  the  au- 
tumn months  than  in  the  summer ;  the  winter  ascent 
is  obviously  hazardous  as  well  as  often  extremely 
arduous.  However,  no  fatalities  have  as  yet  occurred 
in  the  latter  season,  when  the  climb  is  not  often  at- 
tempted by  any  but  experienced  mountaineers  in 
parties. 

It  was  ascents  made  in  October  and  September 
that  led  to  the  earliest  losses  of  life  on  the  Moun- 
tains. Furthermore,  it  was  not  until  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  nineteenth  century  that  Mount  Washing- 

267 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ton  and  the  other  peaks  of  the  Presidential  Range 
began  to  take  their  toll  of  human  life.  In  view  of 
the  great  number  of  ascents  made  before  that  time 
and  of  the  circumstances  that  often  the  climbers 
were  inexperienced  persons  and  that  in  many  cases 
untrodden  and  unmarked  courses  were  passed  over, 
the  early  record  of  no  lives  lost  is  remarkable.  Much 
of  the  credit  for  the  safety  of  such  expeditions  must 
rightfully  be  given  to  Ethan  Allen  Crawford  and 
other  guides  of  the  pioneer  days,  to  whom  not  a  few 
climbers  owed  their  freedom  from  injury  or  from 
a  worse  fate. 

The  first  person  to  perish  on  the  Mountains  was 
the  victim  of  his  own  rashness  and  obstinacy. 
Frederick  Strickland,  the  eldest  son  of  Sir  George 
Strickland,  an  eminent  member  of  Parliament,  came 
to  Thomas  J.  Crawford's  Notch  House  one  day  in 
the  latter  part  of  October,  1851.  An  heir  to  large 
estates,  a  graduate  of  Cambridge  University,  and 
a  cultivated  scholar,  he  was  then  about  thirty-five 
years  of  age.  The  next  day  after  his  arrival  at  the 
hotel,  he  set  out,  in  company  with  another  English- 
man^ and  a  guide,  to  ascend  the  mountains  via  the 
Crawford  Bridle  Path.  On  the  summit  of  Clinton 
they  encountered  deep  snow  and  a  wintry  wind,^ 

*  So  Mr.  Willey,  whose  account  is  very  circumstantial.  The  later 
accounts  say  nothing  of  the  other  Englishman.  Mr.  Willey  gives 
the  date  of  the  ascent  as  October  19,  and  states  that  the  body  was 
found  on  the  second  following  day. 

*  Mr.  Willey  says,  "  When  they  reached  Mount  Pleasant,  the  guide 
and  the  other  Englishman,  on  account  of  the  cold,  and  snow  on  the 
mountain,  proposed  to  return."  The  later  accounts  say  the  party 
encountered  a  snowstorm.  Mr.  Spaulding,  like  Mr.  Willey,  says 
nothing  of  a  snowstorm. 

268 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

under  which  conditions  the  experience  of  the  guide 
had  taught  him  that  it  was  imprudent  to  go  on  and 
so  he  advised  a  return.  Strickland,  however,  was 
determined  to  proceed,  and,  delivering  his  horse 
over  to  the  guide,  he  persisted,  in  defiance  of  the 
weather  and  the  advice  of  the  guide,  in  continuing 
the  ascent  on  foot  and  alone.  The  guide  and  the 
other  gentleman  returned  to  Crawford's. 

It  had  been  the  plan  of  Strickland  to  descend  to 
Fabyan's,  so  Mr.  Crawford  sent  his  baggage  there, 
with  a  message  to  the  effect  that  its  owner  might 
be  expected  to  stay  there  that  night.  As  the  young 
man  did  not  put  in  an  appearance,  Landlord  Fabyan 
thought  he  had  returned  to  the  Notch  House.  The 
next  morning,  Mr.  Crawford,  when  passing,  in- 
quired for  the  Englishman,  and  when  it  was  found 
that  he  had  been  seen  at  neither  inn,  the  proprietors 
became  alarmed  and  started  in  search  of  him.  They 
tracked  him  to  the  summit  of  Washington  and 
thence  down  the  Ammonoosuc  River,  but  found 
that  day  only  some  of  his  clothes.  On  the  following 
day,  they,  with  others,  continued  the  search,  and, 
after  some  time,  the  party  discovered  his  dead  body 
lying  face  downward  in  the  stream.  The  unfortu- 
nate man  had  evidently  fallen  exhausted  over  a 
precipice. 

It  was  nearly  four  years  after  the  perishing  of  the 
young  Englishman,  Strickland,  before  another  death 
was  added  to  the  record  of  fatalities  on  the  Moun- 
tains. This  time  the  life  lost  was  that  of  a  young 
woman,  Miss  Lizzie  C.  Bourne,  of  Kennebunk, 
Maine,  daughter  of  Edward  E.  Bourne,  Judge  of 

269 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Probate  of  York  County.  But  she  can  hardly  be 
called  a  victim  of  the  Mountain's  rigor,  as  her  death 
was  mostly  due  to  a  physical  weakness,  to  the 
aggravation  of  which  the  difficulty  of  climbing  the 
final  mile  or  two  against  a  gale  of  wind  contributed. 
The  chief  element  in  the  pathos  of  the  occurrence 
is  the  knowledge  that  she  was  so  near  shelter  and 
restoratives.  The  place  of  her  succumbing  being 
near  the  railroad  track  and  the  Summit  House,  and 
its  proximate  location  being  marked  by  a  board 
monument,  the  fact  of  her  fate  has  thereby  become 
more  widely  known  than  that  of  any  other  person 
who  has  perished  on  the  Presidential  Range. 

The  story  has  been  often  told.  In  company  with 
her  uncle,  George  W.  Bourne,  and  his  daughter, 
Lucy,  she  started  from  the  Glen  House  about  2  p.m. 
on  September  14,  1855,  the  party's  intention  being 
to  pass  the  night  on  the  Summit.  They  walked  up 
the  carriage  road  as  far  as  it  was  then  built  and  left 
the  Halfway  House  at  four  o'clock  to  complete  the 
ascent  by  the  path,  which  lay  plain  before  them. 
Mr.  Myers,  the  occupant  of  the  House,  tried,  on 
account  of  the  lateness  of  the  day,  to  prevail  upon 
them  to  stay  there  overnight,  but  "they  were  de- 
termined," he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "to  go." 
About  five  o'clock,  two  sons  of  Samuel  F.  Spaulding, 
one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  Tip-Top  House,  met 
them  about  two  miles  below  the  Summit.  They 
were  then  progressing  well  and  evidently  anticipat- 
ing no  trouble  in  finishing  the  climb.  The  weather 
was  clear,  but  a  high  wind  was  soon  encountered, 
against  which  they  struggled  until  after  dark.  Then, 

270 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

as  Miss  Lizzie  showed  signs  of  increasing  exhaustion, 
as  they  were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  proximity  of 
the  Summit,  and  as  the  darkness  obscured  the  way 
and  a  cloud  hid  the  Summit  House,  it  was  deemed 
impossible  to  proceed  farther  that  night.  So  the 
young  women  lay  down  in  the  path,  and  Mr. 
Bourne,  with  great  difficulty,  succeeded  in  building 
a  rude  stone  wall  to  shelter  them  from  the  gale.  So 
far  as  his  niece  was  concerned,  however,  his  efforts 
proved  vain  to  save  her,  for  about  ten  o'clock  he 
found  her  dead,  the  principal  cause  of  her  death 
being  some  organic  disease  of  the  heart.  Her  com- 
panions passed  the  night  in  safety,  discovering  at 
daybreak  the  melancholy  fact  of  their  nearness  to 
the  Summit.  Miss  Bourne,  who  was  but  twenty- 
three  years  old,^  was  buried  in  Hope  Cemetery  at 
Kennebunk,  where  was  set  up  a  large  monument, 
which  was  intended,  as  its  inscriptions  testify,  for 
the  top  of  Mount  Washington,  but  whose  erection 
there  was  prevented  by  the  temporary  failure  of  the 
projected  road. 

The  year  following  the  death  of  Miss  Bourne  was 
marked  by  the  Mountain's  claiming  of  another 
victim,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  young  Englishman, 
the  fatality  was  due  to  the  traveler's  attempting  the 
ascent  without  companions.  On  August  7,  1856, 
Benjamin  Chandler,  an  elderly  man  of  Wilmington, 
Delaware,  started  up  the  path  from  the  Glen  late 
in  the  afternoon,  but  was  caught  in  a  storm  and 

^  The  former  board  monument  on  the  mountain-side  gave  her  age 
as  twenty;  her  age  is  given  correctly  on  the  present  three-sided 
wooden  monument. 

271 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

wandered  from  the  trail.  Two  men  who  arrived  at 
the  Tip-Top  House  that  day,  at  dark  or  a  little  after, 
reported  passing  an  old  gentleman  halfway  up  and 
remarked  that  he  would  hardly  get  up  alone  that 
night.  After  making  some  inquiries,  a  guide  started 
out  with  a  lantern,  but  when  he  had  gone  nearly 
a  mile,  his  light  was  put  out  by  the  wind.  He  then 
returned,  having  got  no  answer  to  his  shouts,  and 
the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  concluded  that  the  old 
gentleman  must  have  stopped  for  the  night  with 
the  road  workmen  camping  at  the  Ledge.  Search 
was  resumed  the  next  morning,  but,  as  it  was  in 
vain,  it  was  thought  that  the  traveler  might  have 
turned  back  and  have  left  the  Mountain.  Late  in 
September,  however,  his  son,  David  Chandler,  came 
in  search  of  his  father  and  offered  a  reward  for  his 
recovery,  and  thus  informed  the  people  of  the  Moun- 
tain region  that  he  was  still  missing. 

For  nearly  a  year  Mr.  Chandler's  fate  was  un- 
known, although  much  time  was  spent  in  searching 
for  his  remains.  Finally,  in  July  of  the  next  year 
after  his  disappearance,  Ambrose  Tower,  of  New 
York,  came  across  a  skeleton  about  half  a  mile  east 
of  the  Summit.  A  gold  watch,  considerable  money, 
a  railroad  ticket,  and  other  articles  were  found  with 
the  skeleton,  and  there  is  no  doubt  of  its  being  that 
of  the  unfortunate  Benjamin  Chandler,  who  was 
about  seventy-five  years  old  when  he  met  his  sad 
fate.  In  his  memory  the  neighboring  ridge  has  since 
been  called  Chandler  Ridge. 

Eighteen  years  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Chandler, 
Harry  W.  Hunter,  twenty- two  years  old,  a  printer 

272 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

of  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  perished  near  the  Craw- 
ford Bridle  Path  about  half  a  mile  from  the  summit 
of  Mount  Washington.  Again  the  victim  was  a  lone 
climber.  On  September  3,  1874,  he  left  the  Willey 
House  in  the  early  morning,  after  writing  home  that 
he  was  about  to  start  to  make  the  ascent.  He  did 
not  appear  at  the  Summit,  and  nothing  was  known 
of  his  fate  until  July  14,  1880,  when  three  Amherst 
students  who  were  climbing  the  Mountain  saw  what 
looked  to  be  the  body  of  a  man  partly  hidden  under 
an  overhanging  rock  on  the  side  of  the  cone.  The 
object  proved  to  be  the  remains  of  the  unfortunate 
printer.  Just  how  the  young  man  met  his  death,  of 
course,  can  never  be  known.  The  weather  records 
for  the  day  show  that  the  weather  was  fair  in  its 
early  part,  but  that  a  high  wind  was  blowing  at  the 
time  when  he  might  have  been  on  the  portion  of 
the  trail  northward  from  Mount  Clinton,  and  that 
it  rained  from  3  to  9  p.m.,  at  which  latter  time  the 
temperature  fell  to  30°.  Such  conditions  are  suffi- 
cient to  account  for  his  fate.  Very  likely,  exhausted 
by  his  exertions  and  chilled  by  the  cold  rain,  he 
crawled  into  the  crevice  for  such  poor  shelter  as  it 
afforded  and  there  succumbed  to  heart  failure.  The 
place  where  his  body  was  found  is  marked  by  a 
board  monument,  grim  reminder  of  the  peril  of  an 
unaccompanied  trip  over  the  Crawford  Trail. 

A  peculiar  accident,  and  one  which  furnishes  a 
warning  against  similar  temptings  of  fate,  was  re- 
sponsible for  another  untimely  and  unnecessary 
death  on  the  side  of  Mount  Washington.  On  July 
24,  1886,  Sewall  E.  Faunce,  a  Boston  boy,  fifteen 

273 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

years  old,  when  climbing  through  Tuckerman*s  Ra- 
vine, rashly  stepped  under  the  snow  arch,  which  fell 
and  killed  him. 

Eight  years  later,  on  July  2,  there  was  a  narrow 
escape  from  a  similar  fatality,  which  might  have 
involved  the  loss  of  several  or  many  lives.  A  party 
of  fifty  members  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club, 
which  was  holding  a  field  meeting  at  the  Summit, 
were  making  an  excursion  through  Tuckerman's 
Ravine  on  that  day.  They  had  passed  through 
the  snow  arch  and  had  barely  emerged,  when  one 
hundred  feet  of  it  fell,  fortunately  injuring  none  of 
them,  although  fragments  of  the  snow  struck  several. 

In  the  cases  of  the  five  persons  who  had  lost  their 
lives  on  the  Range  up  to  the  time  of  the  casualty 
now  to  be  related,  the  bodies  had  been  immediately, 
or,  in  one  instance,  eventually,  recovered.  That  of 
the  sixth  victim,  however,  has  never  been  found, 
and  the  circumstances  and  manner  of  his  perishing 
and  the  resting-place  of  his  remains  are  solely  mat- 
ters of  conjecture.  On  Sunday,  August  24,  1890, 
Ewald  Weiss,  a  violinist  of  the  Summit  House 
orchestra,  set  out  alone  to  visit  the  summit  of  Mount 
Adams.  In  fair  weather  the  trail,  as  far  as  the  base 
of  the  cone  of  that  mountain,  is  not  difficult  to 
traverse  or  to  follow ;  nor  is  the  distance  great.  How- 
ever, a  severe  storm  came  up  and  some  time  during 
it  Weiss  evidently  met  his  death,  as  he  was  never 
seen  afterward.  That,  bewildered  by  the  storm,  he 
wandered  from  the  path  and  went  or  fell  down  into 
one  of  the  ravines  and  there  perished,  or  that  one 
of  the  large  jagged  rocks  with  which  the  cone  of 

274 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

Adams  is  largely  covered  rolled  from  its  place  and 
crushed  him,  concealing  his  body  from  view,  are 
two  plausible  guesses  which  have  been  made  as  to 
the  mystery  of  his  fate.  In  July,  1891,  after  two 
young  men  had  reported  finding,  on  the  precipitous 
eastern  face  of  the  so-called  Mount  John  Quincy 
Adams,  a  watch  which  was  at  first  identified  at  the 
Summit  House  as  that  of  Weiss,  Professor  J.  Rayner 
Edmands  and  Charles  E.  Lowe,  the  well-known 
guide,  started  from  the  Ravine  House  to  make  a 
search  for  the  remains  or  for  traces  of  Weiss.  At 
this  time  they  found  footprints  which  made  them 
conclude  that  the  violinist  intended  to  reach  Mount 
Madison,  which  discovery  opened  the  whole  of  that 
peak  as  a  hunting-ground  for  the  unfortunate  man's 
remains.  Professor  Edmands  conjectured  that 
Weiss  may  have  fallen  over  an  amphitheater  of 
cliffs  forming  a  branch  of  the  Great  Gulf.^ 

It  was  ten  years  after  the  mysterious  death  of  the 
violinist  Weiss  before  the  death-toll  of  the  Presi- 
dential Range  received  any  further  accessions.  Then 
came  the  most  unexpected  and  striking,  so  far,  of 
the  tragedies  of  climbing  in  the  White  Mountains, 
the  double  fatality  which  is  constituted  by  the 
deaths  of  Curtis  and  Ormsbee  on  the  Crawford 
Trail.  Occurring  at  the  time  of  year  it  did,  it  made 
a  profound  impression  upon  visitors  to  the  Moun- 
tains in  that  season  and  in  the  following  years,  be- 
cause of  the  demonstration  the  casualty  afforded  of 
the  possibility,  even  in  summer,  of  peril  from  weather 

*  From  a  letter  of  Professor  Edmands  to  The  White  Mountain 
Echo,  published  in  the  issue  of  that  paper  for  August  i,  1891. 

275 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

so  violent  as  to  be  too  much  for  even  the  most 
athletic  and  hardy  to  cope  with  successfully. 

William  B.  Curtis/  of  New  York,  a  noted  Ameri- 
can amateur  athlete,  known  to  many  friends  as 
"Father  Bill"  Curtis,  started,  in  company  with 
Allan  Ormsbee,  of  Brooklyn,  also  famous  for  his 
athletic  prowess,  to  go  up  the  Crawford  Path  on 
Saturday  afternoon,  June  30,  1900.  It  was  their 
intention  to  join  the  members  of  the  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club,  who  had  gone  up  by  train  that  day, 
at  the  Summit  House,  where  the  Club  was  about  to 
hold  a  field  meeting.  A  storm  was  threatening,  but 
as  Curtis  knew  the  trail  well,  the  thought  of  harm 
was  not  seriously  entertained.  During  the  ascent, 
however,  one  of  the  most  furious  storms  ^  ever 
known  in  the  summer  season  broke  upon  them. 
Rain  and  hail,  which  changed  to  sleet  and  snow, 
were  accompanied  by  a  gale  of  nearly  one  hundred 
miles  an  hour. 

*  Mr.  Curtis,  who  was  at  the  time  of  his  death  sixty-three  years 
old,  was  the  founder  of  the  Fresh  Air  Club  of  New  York  and  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  New  York  Athletic  Club.  He  took  up  mountain- 
climbing  late  in  life  and  was  accustomed  to  climb  alone  and  in  all 
sorts  of  weather,  thinly  clad. 

Mr.  Ormsbee,  who  was  in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  was  a  member 
of  the  Crescent  Athletic  Club  of  Brooklyn  and  of  the  Fresh  Air  Club. 

*  During  this,  "the  storm  of  a  century,"  which  raged  for  sixty 
hours,  more  than  forty  panes  of  glass  were  broken  in  the  Summit 
House.  The  temperature  fell  from  48°  on  Friday  to  25°  on  Saturday 
morning,  before  the  storm.  Rev.  Dr.  Harry  P.  Nichols  and  his  son, 
Donaldson,  came  up  by  the  Montalban  Ridge  in  this  same  storm 
and  had  a  hard  struggle  to  reach  the  Summit.  They  arrived  at  the 
open  Boott  Spur  at  n  a.m.  on  Saturday,  and  by  alternate  rushings 
and  crouchings  they  succeeded  in  crossing  Bigelow's  Lawn  in  two 
hours.  On  the  cone  the  sleet  was  bitter  and  the  rocks  crusted  with 
ice.  Every  one  hundred  steps  required  a  pause  behind  some  shelter- 
ing rock  to  recover  breath  and  normal  heart  action. 

276 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

All  day  Sunday  the  Club  members  were  confined 
absolutely  in  the  hotel,  their  minds  filled  with  anx- 
ious forebodings  as  to  the  fate  of  the  two  trampers, 
whom  they  were  powerless  to  aid  in  any  way.  When 
the  terrible  storm  at  length  ended  on  Monday,  and 
fair  weather  permitted  a  search  to  be  made  for  the 
two  men,  the  body  of  Curtis  was  found  about  noon, 
by  Louis  F.  Cutter,  lying  on  the  path  about  two 
miles  down,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Lakes  of  the 
Clouds.  Ormsbee's  body  was  found  late  in  the  after- 
noon, by  Professor  Herschel  C.  Parker,  within  five 
minutes'  walk  of  the  Signal  Station,  at  a  point  off 
the  path,  which  he  had  reached  after  climbing,  by 
efforts  almost  superhuman,  over  the  icy  rocks. 

The  two  men  were  seen  at  1.30  p.m.  on  the  fatal 
Saturday,  when  they  were  on  the  south  side  of 
Mount  Pleasant,  by  James  C.  Harvey,  a  workman 
from  the  Crawford  House,  who,  with  a  companion, 
was  engaged  in  cutting  out  growth  on  the  path. 
He  started  after  them  and  shouted,  but  did  not 
succeed  in  overtaking  or  in  stopping  them.  They 
signed  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  roll  in  the 
cylinder  on  Mount  Pleasant,  giving  the  date  and 
this  note  as  to  the  weather:  *'Rain  clouds  and  wind 
sixty  miles  —  Cold."  They  were  last  seen  alive  by 
two  Bartlett  men,  Charles  Allen  and  Walter  Parker, 
who  had  been  employed  by  a  camping  party  in  the 
woods  south  of  Mount  Washington,  and  who,  when 
on  their  way  down,  met  Curtis  and  Ormsbee  north 
of  Mount  Pleasant.  Neither  of  the  climbers  made 
any  reply  to  a  warning  to  turn  back. 

The  probable  course  of  events  may  be  inferred  to 
277 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

be  this:  Mr.  Curtis  doubtless  fell  on  the  ice-coated 
rocks,  for  he  had  received  a  blow  on  the  head  suf- 
ficient to  render  him  senseless.  Ormsbee,  failing  to 
restore  him,  hastened,  after  providing  such  tem- 
porary shelter  as  he  could  for  his  companion,  toward 
the  Summit,  which  he  knew  was  the  nearest  point 
where  aid  could  be  secured.  There,  two  miles  away, 
were  many  sturdy  mountaineers. 

If  this  hypothesis  is  correct,  Curtis  must  have 
regained  consciousness  after  Ormsbee  had  left  him, 
and  have  endeavored  to  struggle  on,  for  his  body 
was  found  some  distance  beyond  the  place,  under 
the  lee  of  the  larger  of  the  Monroe  summits,  where 
evidence  was  found  of  an  attempt  to  make  a  rude 
shelter. 

Or,  to  give  another  supposition,  when  resting  at 
this  temporary  refuge  and  taking  counsel  as  to  what 
course  to  pursue,  they  may  have  decided  that  there 
was  no  hope  of  survival  unless  they  kept  in  motion, 
and  so  may  have  continued  on  from  there,  Curtis's 
fall  occurring  not  long  afterward  on  the  spot  where 
his  body  lay,  and  Ormsbee  having  then  pushed  on 
to  get  assistance.  Or,  again,  Curtis  may  have  been 
a  few  steps  behind  his  companion  and  have  fallen 
without  the  latter's  knowledge  in  the  thick  fog  and 
perhaps  darkness. 

However  that  may  be,  the  pitiless  storm  and 
mountain  were  too  much  also  for  Ormsbee.  Along 
the  remaining  portion  of  the  trail  he  must  often  have 
fallen  and  so  have  severely  injured  himself,  for  his 
body  was  covered  with  cuts  and  bruises.  Even 
after  encountering  such  mishaps,  although  he  must 

278 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

have  realized  that  the  struggle  to  save  his  own  life 
and  that  of  his  friend  was  probably  hopeless,  the 
heroic  man  did  not  immediately  give  up.  His  lac- 
erated hands  showed  that  he  must  have  dragged 
himself  for  some  distance  over  the  jagged  rocks  be- 
fore death  overtook  him. 

The  spot  where  Curtis's  body  was  found  is  con- 
spicuously marked  by  a  pile  of  stones  surmounted 
with  a  wooden  cross  and  by  a  bronze  memorial 
tablet  fastened  to  the  adjacent  rock,  and  bearing 
this  inscription:  "On  this  spot  William  B.  Curtis 
perished  in  the  great  storm  of  June  30,  1900.  Placed 
by  Fresh  Air  Club  of  New  York."  Fifteen  hundred 
and  eighty  feet  farther  up  the  trail  the  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club  built  the  next  summer  a  wooden 
shelter  ^  where  trampers  may  take  refuge  from  the 
storms  which  sometimes  sweep  over  the  exposed 
southern  trail,  with  the  idea  of  minimizing  the  dan- 
ger of  such  fatalities  as  have  just  been  narrated. 

The  place  where  the  stout-hearted  Ormsbee's 
body  was  found  is  also  marked  by  a  wooden  cross 
and  a  bronze  tablet  provided  by  the  Fresh  Air  Club. 

The  latest  fatality  in  the  White  Mountain  region, 
which  occurred  in  1912,  is  in  some  respects  the  most 
singular  of  all.  It  is  unlike  all  the  other  casualties 
in  that  the  unfortunate  man  was  not  a  pleasure- 
seeking  tramper,  in  that  he  got  off  the  dangerous 
upper  mountain  tract  alive,  and  in  that  he  was  seen 
after  he  had  reached  the  valley  district  by  several 
persons,  and  yet  was  finally  lost. 

John  M.  Keenan,  eighteen  years  of  age,  of  Charles- 
*  Moved  in  19 15  about  half  a  mile  farther  north. 
279 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

town,  Massachusetts,  was  a  new  member  of  a  party 
of  engineers,  who  for  two  summers  had  been  survey- 
ing the  right  of  way  for  a  proposed  scenic  railway 
up  Mount  Washington.  Keenan  arrived  at  the  sur- 
veyors' camp  at  the  Base  of  the  Mountain  on  Fri- 
day, September  13,  and  the  next  day  began  his  work 
as  rear  flagman.  His  duties  for  the  next  few  days 
kept  him  near  the  Base,  but  on  Wednesday,  the 
1 8th,  he  went  to  the  Summit  with  a  party  of  expe- 
rienced engineers.  After  reaching  the  Summit  the 
surveyors  descended  the  cone  to  a  point  below  the 
Ormsbee  monument  and  in  the  direction  of  the 
Lakes  of  the  Clouds.  The  chief  gave  instructions 
and  placed  his  men  in  various  positions,  Keenan 
being  told,  as  a  man  unfamiliar  with  the  ground,  to 
remain  at  his  station  until  he  was  signaled  to  come 
up  to  the  Summit,  or,  if  it  clouded  up,  to  stay  there 
until  they  came  for  him. 

Although  the  sky  was  overcast  and  the  wind  on 
the  top  was  blowing  more  than  fifty  miles  an  hour, 
the  Mountain  was  free  from  clouds  the  early  part 
of  the  forenoon.  The  surveyors  had  not  been  long 
separated,  when  a  heavy  cloud,  in  which  objects 
could  scarcely  be  seen  ten  feet  away,  enveloped  the 
Mountain.  Coming  to  the  conclusion,  after  a  little 
while,  that  conditions  were  not  likely  to  improve, 
but  rather  appeared  to  be  getting  worse,  the  chief 
decided  to  go  back  to  get  Keenan  and  to  go  then 
up  to  the  Tip-Top  House.  On  reaching  the  position 
where  Keenan  had  been  stationed,  they  found  that, 
contrary  to  orders,  he  had  left.  This  was  at  10  a.m. 
The  party  searched  in  that  vicinity  until  noon  with-^ 

280 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

out  success,  and  then  went  to  the  Summit,  whither 
it  was  thought  the  lost  man  might  have  gone. 
Finding  that  he  was  not  there,  and  learning  on 
telephoning  to  the  Base  that  he  had  not  arrived  at 
that  point  by  the  afternoon  train,  as  was  thought 
possible,  the  alarmed  men  took  up  the  search  again 
and  continued  it,  but  in  vain,  until  nearly  dark, 
when  they  had  to  desist  on  peril  of  losing  their  own 
lives. 

When  the  surveyors  arrived  at  the  Base  that 
night  and  told  the  story  of  Keenan's  disappearance, 
word  was  at  once  sent  to  the  various  Mountain 
centers  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  the  missing  man. 
The  bell  on  the  Summit  was  kept  ringing  all  night, 
while  at  the  Base  the  steam  whistle  was  blown  at 
intervals. 

Thursday  a  large  party,  composed  of  the  survey- 
ors and  others,  made  a  fruitless  search  of  the  entire 
cone  of  Mount  Washington  in  dense  clouds.  The 
search  was  continued  Friday  under  dangerous 
weather  conditions,  as  the  clouds  had  not  lifted 
and  the  fall  in  temperature  had  caused  the  rocks  to 
become  coated  with  ice.  That  night  word  was  re- 
ceived from  the  Honorable  George  H.  Turner,  of 
Bethlehem,  who  with  Dr.  Gile,  of  Hanover,  had 
been  out  making  a  tour  of  inspection  of  State  roads 
on  that  day,  that  between  11.30  a.m.  and  12  m. 
they  had  passed  a  man  who  answered  the  descrip- 
tion of  Keenan,  at  a  point  on  the  Pinkham  Notch 
Road  about  two  miles  below  the  Glen  House.  The 
man  was  standing  beside  the  road  and  appeared 
almost  demented.    As  the  automobile  passed,  he 

281 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

waved  his  arms  and  pointed  toward  Mount  Wash- 
ington, but  did  not  speak.  Unfortunately,  Mr. 
Turner  did  not  know  until  he  reached  Fabyan  that 
a  man  had  been  lost. 

This  information  made  it  evident  that  Keenan 
had  succeeded  in  getting  off  the  Mountain.  How 
he  accomplished  this  will  never  be  known.  He 
naturally  at  the  outset  traveled  with  the  wind, 
which  course  would  take  him  into  Tuckerman's 
Ravine.  Down  the  precipice  he  must  have  managed 
to  slip,  slide,  crawl,  and  fall,  evidently  arriving  at 
the  Pinkham  Notch  Road  in  sound  physical  condi- 
tion, a  remarkable  outcome  under  the  circumstances. 

The  searching  party,  which  was  spending  the  night 
on  the  Summit,  was  communicated  with,  and  told 
to  go  at  daybreak  to  the  Glen  House  and  start  a 
search  from  there.  Several  experienced  guides  had 
in  the  mean  time  been  hired  by  the  railway  company 
and  they  also  were  ordered  to  the  Glen.  When  the 
party  arrived  at  its  new  field  of  search.  Fire  Warden 
Briggs  was  found  at  his  camp  and  inquiry  was  made 
of  him  as  to  whether  he  had  seen  anything  of  the 
lost  young  man.  It  was  then  learned  that  the  fire 
warden  had  met  a  man  answering  Keenan's  descrip- 
tion on  Friday  morning,  when  coming  down  a  lonely 
log  road  near  the  point  where  Mr.  Turner  passed 
him.  From  what  the  stranger  said  there  is  no  doubt 
that  he  was  Keenan.  His  mental  condition  was  evi- 
dent from  his  rambling  and  somewhat  unintelligible 
talk,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said  he  was  looking 
for  the  Keenan  farm.  Briggs  at  the  time  had  not 
.learned  of  any  one  having  been  lost.  Knowing  that 

282 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

there  was  no  such  farm  in  that  region,  he  did  not 
credit  this  and  some  others  of  the  man's  statements. 

After  being  brought  down  to  the  State  road  and 
being  shown  the  way  to  the  Glen  House,  Keenan 
bade  Briggs  good-bye  and  started  about  ii  a.m.  in 
that  direction.  Briggs  then  went  to  his  camp,  and, 
being  accustomed  to  meet  strange-looking  persons 
in  that  locality  during  the  summer,  he  gave  no 
further  thought  to  the  man  he  had  seen  until  the 
searching  party  visited  his  camp. 

During  the  disagreeable  weather  which  continued 
through  Saturday,  the  searchers  covered  carefully 
the  ground  between  the  Darby  Field  and  the  Glen 
House,  but  without  avail.  Sunday  the  22d,  the  first 
clear  day  after  Keenan  was  lost,  they  were  joined 
by  fully  one  hundred  voluntary  searchers  from  Gor- 
ham  and  other  places  in  the  Mountains,  and,  al- 
though every  foot  of  ground  on  both  sides  of  the 
road  for  more  than  a  mile  was  gone  over  and  other 
ground  was  covered  and  Milliken's  Pond  drained, 
no  trace  of  Keenan  was  found.  His  father,  Lawrence 
J.  Keenan,  came  on  from  Boston  and  was  with  the 
searchers  all  day  Sunday,  returning  to  his  home 
that  night  satisfied  that  a  thorough  search  had  been 
made  and  that  there  was  no  chance  of  finding  his 
boy  alive.  Search  was  discontinued  on  Monday, 
except  by  the  experienced  guides  and  a  few  of  the 
surveyors,  who  went  again  over  the  territory. 

In  the  mean  time  it  was  rumored  that  a  man  by 
the  name  of  Lightfoot,  who  was  following  Mr. 
Turner  in  an  automobile,  had  picked  up  a  man 
thought  to  be  Keenan.    This  story,  which  was  at 

283 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

first  contradicted  and  thought  to  be  false,  turned  out 
to  be  true,  and,  when  its  details  became  known,  it 
threw  a  new  light  on  the  mystery.  Lightfoot,  a 
chauffeur  of  Bethlehem,  was  carrying  the  highway 
officials'  baggage  in  his  own  car  behind  them.  About 
noon,  and  about  half  a  mile  beyond  the  Glen  House 
toward  Jackson,  he  was  stopped  by  a  young  man 
who  asked  him  for  a  ride  and  got  into  the  vehicle. 
Although  Lightfoot  knew  that  a  surveyor  had  been 
lost  on  the  Mountain,  he  did  not  until  later,  after 
seeing  Keenan's  picture  in  a  Boston  paper,  connect 
the  coatless  and  evidently  demented  passenger  with 
the  missing  man. 

The  chauffeur  carried  Keenan  about  two  miles, 
and  at  his  request  let  him  out  at  the  deserted  lumber 
camps  near  the  Darby  Field,  not  looking,  in  the  hard 
rain,  to  see  just  where  he  went  after  getting  out. 
When  this  story  was  told  a  few  days  later,  another 
searching  party  was  organized  and  the  territory 
where  the  poor  fellow  was  last  seen  was  covered, 
but  without  success.  The  most  likely  supposition 
as  to  what  became  of  him  is  that  he  wandered  in  his 
dazed,  helpless  way  up  some  of  the  old  log  roads 
and  through  the  thick  woods  toward  Mount  Wash- 
ington, until,  exhausted  from  hunger  and  exertion, 
he  sank  down.^ 

The  record  of  having  endured  probably  the  most 
terrible  of  experiences,  and  certainly  the  most  pro- 
longed of  all  encounters,  with  the  fury  of  the  Moun- 

^  I  am  indebted  for  my  account  of  this  casualty  to  Reginald  H. 
Buckler's  very  full  and  comprehensive  account  published  in  the  issues 
of  Among  the  Clouds  for  July  15,  16,  and  17,  1913. 

284 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

tain  weather  in  the  history  of  White  Mountain 
climbing,  and  of  having,  in  spite  of  unexampled 
hardship  and  great  agony,  survived  to  tell  the  tale, 
belongs  to  Dr.  B.  L.  Ball,  a  Boston  physician.  His 
almost  miraculous  escape  from  death  under  the  con- 
ditions he  met  with  was  due  in  part  to  his  medical 
training,  which  made  him  know  the  fatal  conse- 
quences of  permitting  himself  to  go  to  sleep,  and  in 
part  to  the  fortunate  chance,  as  it  turned  out,  that 
it  was  raining  when  he  began  his  ascent  and  also 
when  he  continued  it  on  the  second  day  from  the 
Camp  House,  which  circumstance  caused  him  to 
take  his  umbrella. 

Dr.  Ball  had  been  an  extensive  traveler,  having 
visited  only  a  short  time  before  this  adventure  the 
Philippine  Islands  and  Java,  where  he  had  success- 
fully achieved  on  the  third  trial  the  difficult  ascent 
of  the  cone  of  the  Marapee.  He  had  crossed  the 
Bernese  Alps,  wading  much  of  the  way  in  deep  snow, 
and  had,  against  the  protestations  of  guides,  per- 
sisted in  climbing  a  snowy  peak  near  the  Bains  de 
Leuk,  also  in  Switzerland.  So  he  was  an  experienced 
mountaineer,  thus  well  prepared  for  coping  with 
any  conditions  he  was  likely  to  meet  with  in  climb- 
ing Mount  Washington. 

Dr.  Ball  had  intended  to  make  his  excursion  to 
the  White  Mountains  as  early  as  midsummer  of 
1854,  when  he  had  just  returned  from  Europe,  as 
he  "was  desirous  of  comparing  some  of  the  finest 
American  scenery"  with  that  he  had  just  seen 
abroad.  But  his  engagements  prevented,  and  the 
summer  of  1855  was  also  occupied,  much  of  the 

285 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

time  with  the  preparation  and  publication  of  his 
''Rambles  in  Eastern  Asia,"  so  that  it  was  the  mid- 
dle of  October  before  he  was  free  to  carry  out  his 
design. 

He  had  regarded  October  as  too  late,  thinking 
that  the  autumnal  scenery  must  have  lost  much  of 
its  attractiveness  and  that  the  weather  would  be 
too  cool  on  the  Mountains,  but  friends  had  told 
him  that  he  would  probably  be  repaid  for  the  jour- 
ney even  as  late  as  the  first  of  November.  Added 
to  this  encouragement  was  the  inducement  that 
two  former  traveling  companions  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  had  started  about  the  middle  of  October  to 
visit  the  White  Mountains  and  Niagara  Falls  to 
take  sketches  and  would  be  at  the  Mountains  at 
the  end  of  a  week,  where  he  had  partly  arranged 
to  meet  them.  While  he  was  awaiting  a  prospect  of 
pleasant  weather,  the  23d  of  October  arrived,  prom- 
ising to  be  the  beginning  of  a  period  of  such  weather. 
The  previous  evening  in  making  a  call  at  a  friend's 
house,  he  met  and  conversed  with  the  Reverend 
T.  Starr  King,  whose  description  of  the  grandeur 
and  beauty  of  the  scenery,  and  expression  of  a  wish 
to  view  the  Mountains  in  autumn  and  in  winter, 
gave  him  an  additional  motive  for  visiting  them  at 
this  season. 

Dr.  Ball  then  resolved  to  go,  his  intention  being 
to  make  an  expeditious  trip  and  to  return  on  the 
third  day.  The  engagements  of  his  friend,  Dr.  A.  B. 
Hall,  who  had  expressed  a  desire  to  accompany  him, 
preventing  that  gentleman's  leaving  for  two  or  three 
days.  Dr.  Ball  determined  to  go  alone.    When  at 

286 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

length  his  mind  was  made  up  to  attempt  the  excur- 
sion, he,  by  making  haste,  reached  the  railroad  sta- 
tion just  in  time  for  the  train  for  Portland.  Arriving 
at  that  city  a  little  after  dark,  he  was  disappointed 
to  find  that  there  was  no  train  for  Gorham  that 
night.  When  he  arose  the  next  morning,  a  greater 
disappointment  was  his,  for  it  was  raining  hard  and 
bid  fair  to  continue  stormy.  Had  he  obeyed  his 
first  impulse,  he  would  have  returned  to  Boston,  but 
the  second  thought  that  it  might  possibly  clear  in 
a  few  hours,  and  that  if  he  should  get  but  a  glimpse 
of  the  Mountains  he  would  return  better  satisfied 
with  his  trip,  made  him  resolve  to  proceed  to  Gor- 
ham, where  he  arrived  about  ii  a.m.  Inquiring  of 
the  train  conductor  as  to  the  location  of  the  Moun- 
tains, and  being  told  that  he  would  not  be  able  to 
see  them  in  such  weather  short  of  the  Glen  House, 
he  decided  to  go  thither.  So  engaging  a  horse,  he 
set  off  on  horseback,  with  his  valise  in  front  of  him 
and  his  umbrella  up  to  protect  him  from  the  rain. 
On  arriving  at  the  hotel  he  found  a  dense  fog  pre- 
vailing. It  had  been  his  intention  to  stop  there  but 
a  half-hour  and  then  to  return,  but,  after  inquiring 
for  his  two  friends  who,  he  was  informed,  had  not 
been  there,  he  engaged  in  conversation  with  the  land- 
lord, Mr.  Thompson.  The  latter  in  the  course  of 
their  conversation  told  him  of  the  carriage  road  then 
under  construction,  of  the  Camp  House  and  Ledge, 
four  miles  up,  and  of  the  bridle  path  to  the  Summit. 
This  information  caused  Dr.  Ball  to  change  his 
mind  about  his  length  of  stay  and  to  form  the  pur- 
pose of  walking  up  the  road  a  distance,  perhaps  as 

287 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

far  as  the  Camp  House,  which  design,  in  spite  of 
Mr.  Thompson's  discouraging  declaration  that  there 
would  be  nothing  to  see  and  his  warning  against  at- 
tempting to  go  to  the  Summit,  he  immediately  put 
into  execution.  Although  it  was  raining  hard,  he 
felt  stimulated  by  the  cool,  invigorating  air  and  so 
continued  his  walk,  to  find  himself  in  less  than  two 
hours  at  the  end  of  the  road  and  at  the  foot-  of  the 
Ledge.  Here  a  less  determined  man  would  have 
been  satisfied  to  stop,  particularly  under  the  weather 
conditions  then  prevailing,  but  the  doctor  concluded 
he  would  go  to  the  top  of  the  Ledge,  and  accordingly, 
he  clambered  up  there,  "without  much  difficulty." 
Perceiving  higher  land  beyond,  he  started  for  it,  but 
progress  became  very  slow  and  fatiguing,  with  a 
chilling  wind  blowing,  the  rain  freezing  upon  him, 
and  his  feet  breaking  through  the  crust  of  snow  at 
every  step.  So  after  about  an  hour's  traveling,  he 
turned  to  retrace  his  steps.  In  the  gathering  dark- 
ness, he  ran  down  and  managed  after  much  diffi- 
culty eventually  to  reach  the  Camp  House,  where, 
arriving  encased  in  ice  and  thoroughly  chilled,  he 
was  hospitably  received  by  its  occupants,  J.  D. 
Myers  and  two  others,  everything  in  the  way  of 
restorative  measures  that  kindness  and  experience 
could  suggest  being  done  for  the  unexpected  guest. 
Accepting  an  invitation  to  remain  until  the  next 
day,  he  passed  a  comfortable,  but  sleepless,  night. 
Little  did  he  think,  when  he  awakened  in  the 
morning,  of  what  was  before  him,  of  the  terrible 
experiences  his  persistency  was  to  bring  upon  him 
that  day  and  the  two  following,  and  of  the  suffering 

288 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

and  even  agony  he  was  to  be  subjected  to  for  weeks 
and  months  afterward.  When  he  walked  out  to  view 
the  prospect,  the  weather  had  softened,  and  al- 
though clouds  hung  over  the  Mountain,  there  was 
little  rain,  and  they  seemed  likely  to  break  away. 
The  bridle  path  was  pointed  out  to  him,  and,  as  it 
was  then  free  from  snow,  he  formed  the  project  of 
making  a  short  trip  over  the  Ledge  and  perhaps  of 
going  on  to  the  Summit,  persuading  himself  to  this 
course  chiefly  by  reflecting  that  he  was  already  half- 
way up  and  that  a  convenient  opportunity  might 
not  present  itself  another  season. 

Despite  the  warnings  conveyed  in  the  not  alto- 
gether encouraging  remark  of  Mr.  Myers  as  to  the 
inadvisability  of  attempting  such  a  trip  at  such  a 
time  and  in  his  recital  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
then  recent  death  of  Miss  Bourne,  Dr.  Ball  deter- 
mined to  go,  and  so,  after  an  almost  untasted  break- 
fast, started  out,  shod  with  his  host's  "much  too 
large,"  but  stout,  thick  boots,  provided  with  a  cane 
presented  to  him  by  the  same  kind-hearted  man, 
and  protected  from  the  sprinkle  by  the  providential 
umbrella. 

At  first  he  made  good  progress,  and  with  little 
fatigue  he  reached  the  top  of  the  Ledge,  where,  how- 
ever, the  view  was,  owing  to  the  fog,  of  but  very 
limited  extent,  only  the  Camp  House  and  its  im- 
mediate surroundings  being  visible.  Soon,  as  he 
went  on,  the  path  became  no  longer  discernible, 
losing  itself  so  gradually  that  its  termination  could 
not  be  detected.  Pressing  on,  following  the  rise  of 
land  and  passing  what  he  calls  the  "first  mountain," 

289 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  way  became  more  difficult  and  fatiguing,  his 
feet  breaking  through  the  crust  and  being  often 
difficult  to  extricate.  His  natural  determination  and 
the  lure  of  an  occasional  breaking-away  of  the  clouds 
made  him  continue  on,  when  the  greater  consump- 
tion of  time  than  anticipated  and  the  increasing 
difficulty  counseled  abandoning  the  project.  "Be- 
tween the  second  and  third  mountains,"  the  air 
grew  disagreeably  cold,  the  rain  changed  to  sleet 
and  soon  to  fast-falling  snow,  and  the  wind  increased. 
Pressing  forward,  he  at  length,  after  many  wander- 
ings from  his  course,  reached  "the  summit  of  the 
third  mountain."  There  he  was  at  a  loss  what  direc- 
tion to  take,  but,  believing  that  he  was  three-fourths 
of  the  way  up,  and  having  been  told  that  he  would 
find  provisions,  materials  for  fire,  and  clothes  and 
bedding  for  the  night  at  one  of  the  two  houses  on 
the  Summit,  on  he  resolved  to  go. 

In  spite  of  the  piercing  cold  and  the  violent  wind, 
which  made  the  storm  difficult  to  face,  and  the 
clouds  of  snow,  which  rendered  it  impossible  to  see 
more  than  a  very  short  distance,  this  man  of  indom- 
itable will  and  amazing  hopefulness,  lured  by  the 
thought  that  he  was  within  half  or  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  of  comfortable  shelter  and  the  possibility 
that  the  storm  might  in  a  short  time  be  over,  went 
on  with  renewed  energy.  He  walked  as  fast  as  his 
partly  benumbed  legs  would  permit,  buffeting  the 
cold  storm.  Many  times  the  wind  threw  him  to  the 
ground,  but,  although  his  face  became  covered  with 
ice,  a  row  of  icicles  two  inches  long  depended  from 
his  cap,  and  his  eyelashes  were  filled  with  icy  globules, 

290 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

and  although  he  began  to  think  the  condition  of 
affairs  had  become  somewhat  desperate,  he  resolved, 
believing  that  he  was  on  the  "fourth  mountain," 
to  try  for  the  Summit  House. 

After  an  hour's  painful  exertion  against  a  storm 
which,  instead  of  abating,  appeared  to  increase,  and 
in  which  he  could  advance  only  by  plunging  forward 
by  aid  of  his  cane  in  the  intervals  of  the  gusts,  he 
arrived  upon  a  piece  of  comparatively  level  ground, 
which  he  took  to  be  the  summit  of  Mount  Washing- 
ton. His  self-congratulation  upon  his  supposed  suc- 
cess was  damped  by  the  condition  that  now  con- 
fronted him,  for,  if  the  storm  had  seemed  violent 
elsewhere,  in  this  exposed  place  it  had  a  fury  that 
was  indescribable.  '*If  ten  hurricanes  had  been  in 
deadly  strife  with  each  other,  it  could  have  been 
no  worse,"  he  says.  His  freezing  hands  and  be- 
numbed limbs  and  the  increasing  laboriousness  of 
respiration  admonished  him  that  he  must  find  the 
Summit  House  if  he  would  live.  So  he  groped  on 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the  whirling  snow, 
seeking  the  desired  shelter,  blown  along  or  pros- 
trated by  turns  by  the  powerful  wind,  and  aware 
that  he  was  becoming  frozen. 

Twice  he  went  in  the  direction  of  darker  shades 
which  he  thought  might  be  the  hotel,  only  to  find 
on  reaching  the  objects  that  they  were  piles  of 
rocks,  in  one  case  evidently  a  landmark  or  a  monu- 
ment. Unwilling  to  give  up,  although  coming  to 
think  that  the  mountain  he  was  on  might  not  be 
the  Summit,  he  persevered  for  a  while  longer  in  his 
search,  but  in  vain.    Seating  himself  in  the  slight 

291 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

shelter  of  a  rock,  to  consider  the  best  course  to 
pursue,  he  remained  there  until  he  became  aware 
that  he  was  as  if  riveted  to  the  ground  and  that  a 
delightful  drowsiness  was  stealing  over  him.  Know- 
ing that  he  must  rouse  himself,  he  raised  himself  with 
considerable  effort,  and,  reluctant  even  then  to 
abandon  his  project,  made  one  more  trial,  which 
ended  as  had  his  other  exertions.  This  time  he 
found  that  the  land  descended  in  every  direction 
and,  knowing  that  he  could  not  hold  out  much 
longer,  he  finally  decided  to  make  his  way  back. 
It  was  then,  as  he  judged,  about  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon,  so  delay  was  dangerous  and  some  degree 
of  haste  was  demanded. 

At  first,  in  retracing  his  course  he  tried  to  find 
his  footprints  in  order  to  follow  them  back,  but  they 
were  irregular  and  at  times  partly  obliterated  or 
lost  altogether,  so  that  much  time  was  consumed 
in  searching  for  them.  Finding  his  strength  rapidly 
failing  from  the  cold,  he  believed  it  more  prudent 
to  abandon  search  entirely,  and,  guided  only  by  the 
fall  of  the  land,  to  undertake  the  descent.  The  furi- 
ous wind  enveloped  him  in  snow,  he  was  compelled  to 
gasp  and  hold  on  to  the  rocks  for  minutes  at  a  time, 
and  frequently  a  sudden  gust  threw  him  down, 
causing  him  to  receive  many  bruises  from  the 
hidden  stones. 

Before  he  had  proceeded  far,  he  came  upon  a 
stake  standing  a  few  inches  above  the  snow.  Ad- 
vancing he  saw  others  and  noticed  that  they  were 
at  regular  distances.  They  were  surveyors'  marks 
for  the  contemplated  road  to  the  Summit ;  and  when 

292 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

the  doctor  realized  what  they  were,  he  at  first 
had  the  thought  of  trying  to  follow  them  up  to  the 
goal  of  his  desire,  but  various  considerations,  such 
as  the  possibility  of  their  not  extending  all  the 
way,  his  condition,  and  the  lateness  of  the  day,  de- 
cided him  to  go  downward  only.  So  on  he  went  as 
best  he  could,  and  at  length  a  patch  of  thick, 
stunted  brushwood  appeared  before  him,  indicating 
that  he  had  reached  the  line  of  vegetation.  Here  he 
soon  could  discover  no  more  stakes,  and  to  his  con- 
sternation observed  that  night  was  fast  coming  on. 
Being  in  doubt  what  course  to  pursue  and  knowing 
nothing  as  to  where  he  was,  he  continued  downward 
for  some  little  time  against  many  obstacles,  until  the 
gathering  darkness  made  it  evident  that  he  should 
have  to  pass  the  night  out  on  the  Mountain.  Per- 
ceiving that  he  was  fast  freezing  and  knowing 
that  his  own  exertions  were  all  he  had  to  depend 
upon,  he  looked  around  for  shelter,  but  in  vain. 
Finally,  stopping  on  a  flat  rock,  and  casting  his  eyes 
about,  he  saw  a  small  recess  between  it  and  a  low 
patch  of  firs.  Then  he  found  a  use  for  the  umbrella, 
for  opening  it  over  him,  and  below  the  firs,  he  util- 
ized it  as  a  shelter,  fortunately  finding  a  strong  root 
at  hand  in  the  snow,  to  which  he  managed,  with 
great  difficulty  on  account  of  the  numbness  of  his 
hands,  to  fasten  the  handle  by  means  of  a  small  cord. 
After  a  short  rest,  he  set  to  work,  with  all  his  re- 
maining strength,  pulling  up  the  tough  bushes  by  the 
roots  and  piling  them  upon  the  umbrella  to  protect 
it  from  the  wind.  The  sides  of  his  camp  he  made 
tight  with  crusts  of  snow  and  tops  of  fir  trees.  At- 

293 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

tempts  to  build  a  fire  were  unsuccessful  because  of 
the  dampness  of  the  wood  and  the  force  of  the  storm. 
In  this  frail  shelter  the  doctor  passed  the  night  — 
the  longest  of  his  life,  he  pronounces  it.  Knowing 
too  well  the  fatal  consequence  of  indulging  in  even 
a  few  minutes'  sleep,  and  feeling  that,  with  his  stiff 
and  frozen  feet  and  the  freezing  chill  of  his  body, 
he  might  be  soon  overpowered,  Dr.  Ball  exerted 
himself  to  his  utmost  to  keep  awake.  By  taking  con- 
strained positions,  now  leaning  on  one  elbow,  then 
on  the  other,  now  changing  from  side  to  side,  now 
taking  a  forward  position,  then  a  backward  one, 
now  extending  at  full  length  and  now  drawn  up,  he 
succeeded  in  preventing  sleep.  During  the  whole 
night  the  storm  swept  down  the  mountain-side,  with 
such  violence  that  he  feared  many  times  it  would 
carry  away  the  umbrella  and  leave  him  exposed  to 
certain  death. 

But  no  such  disaster  happened,  and  at  length 
morning  —  it  was  Friday,  October  26  —  dawned. 
The  snow  had  ceased  falling,  but  the  keen  wind  still 
blew  hard  and  clouds  obscured  the  sun  and  shut 
out  all  the  view  below  him,  while  above  the  air  was 
clear.  It  seemed  to  him,  so  numb  was  he,  that  he 
had  become  a  part  of  the  Mountain  itself,  but 
arousing  himself  and  exercising  to  restore  warmth 
and  animation  to  his  feet,  he  contrived  with  the  aid 
of  his  cane  to  ascend  to  the  line  where  vegetation 
ceases,  to  reconnoiter.  But  nothing  to  guide  him 
could  be  seen,  clouds  being  above  him  and  below. 
Searching  diligently  for  the  stakes,  he  was  unable 
to  find  them  beyond  this  place,  and  so  was  disap- 

294 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

pointed  of  any  guidance  they  might  furnish  him. 
It  was  difficult  to  determine  on  what  course  of  action 
to  pursue.  He  had  no  wish  to  go  toward  the  sup- 
posed Mount  Washington,  —  the  mountain,  he 
learned  afterward,  was  Mount  Jefferson,  —  which 
was  on  the  right.  Reasoning  that  if  he  made  a  cir- 
cuit of  the  Mountain  he  should  somewhere  cross  his 
track  of  ascent,  which  he  might  follow  down,  he 
started  off  toward  the  left.  The  ground  was  covered 
with  snow  to  the  depth  of  eight  or  ten  inches,  and  he 
could  travel  but  slowly  on  account  of  his  weakness 
and  various  difficulties  in  the  way.  At  nearly  every 
step  his  feet  broke  through  the  crust,  and  he  several 
times  had  to  make  considerable  detours  to  avoid 
obstacles.  Vainly  he  tried  to  quench  his  burning 
thirst  with  ice,  which  he  broke  from  the  rocks. 

He  traveled  for  about  two  hours  toward  a  place 
which  showed  some  appearance  of  a  path,  and 
about  noon,  as  he  judged,  he  arrived  near  it,  but 
to  his  disappointment,  he  could  discover  nothing 
that  looked  like  an  outlet. 

Discouraging  as  it  was,  there  was  no  other  course 
but  to  retrace  his  steps.  It  had  taken  him  four  hours 
to  reach  where  he  now  was,  and,  knowing  that  it 
would  take  at  least  as  much  time  to  return,  he 
walked  along  as  fast  as  the  nature  of  the  way  and 
the  clumsiness  of  his  frozen  feet  would  permit.  As 
he  approached  the  place  of  the  previous  night's 
shelter,  the  clouds  cleared  away  so  that  he  could 
see  below,  but  nothing  was  visible  but  forests  and 
another  range  of  mountains  beyond  them.  Hearing 
a  clinking  noise  he  looked  around  and  saw  upon  the 

295 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

top  of  the  bluff  two  men,  apparently  standing  to- 
gether. Thinking  now  that  help  was  at  hand,  he 
hallooed  repeatedly.  But  his  voice  died  away  on  the 
wind,  and,  discerning  no  movement  in  them,  he  at 
last  concluded  that  they  might  be  rocks  with  shapes 
like  men,  and,  although  he  did  not  give  up  trying 
to  attract  their  attention,  he  continued  on.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  reach  them.  The  men  —  for 
men  they  were  and  not  rocks  —  were  two  guides 
who  had  been  sent  out  to  look  for  Dr.  Ball  by  Land- 
lord Thompson,  of  the  Glen  House.  They  found 
the  doctor's  tracks  and  followed  them  to  within  half 
a  mile  of  his  place  of  shelter,  but  night  coming  on, 
they  despaired  of  finding  him  and  returned  home. 
Probably  on  account  of  the  high  wind  no  sound  of 
his  voice  reached  them. 

Arriving  near  the  place  where  he  had  spent  the 
painful  previous  night.  Dr.  Ball  observed  that  the 
sun  was  sinking,  and,  as  the  clouds  gathered  around 
closer  and  thicker  and  the  cold  was  intense  and 
piercing,  and  as,  moreover,  in  his  weakened  condi- 
tion he  could  do  nothing  in  the  way  of  searching 
for  an  outlet  farther  on  to  the  right,  he  was  soon 
forced  to  the  melancholy  conclusion  that  he  must 
pass  another  night  on  the  Mountain.  Failing,  after 
about  half  an  hour's  search,  to  find  a  more  com- 
fortable place  in  which  to  stay,  he,  with  some  diffi- 
culty in  the  storm  and  darkness,  made  his  way  to 
the  sheltering  rock  and  fastened  his  umbrella  in  the 
same  place  as  before,  endeavoring,  but  with  not 
much  success,  to  close  it  in  more  securely  than  it 
had  been  the  night  before. 

296 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

The  second  night  passed  much  like  the  first.  It 
stormed  and  snowed  all  night,  the  snow  drifted  in 
a  good  deal,  and  the  wind  came  in  violent  gusts, 
threatening  to  destroy  at  times  his  only  shelter.  His 
sufferings  from  thirst  were  almost  intolerable,  his 
throat  and  stomach  feeling  as  if  they  were  scorched. 
The  crusts  of  frozen  snow  alleviated  his  distress 
only  while  he  was  swallowing  them.  His  respiration 
became  short,  his  lungs  apparently  becoming  in- 
capable of  inflating  to  more  than  about  half  their 
natural  capacity,  he  continually  experienced  a  se- 
vere pain  in  his  left  side,  his  pulse  was  accelerated, 
but  much  reduced  in  force,  labored,  and  very  inter- 
mittent, and  his  entire  muscular  system  was  affected 
with  uncontrollable  shaking.  Sleep  was  warded  off 
by  keeping  the  mind  active  by  a  multiplicity  of 
thoughts  and  by  taking  constrained  positions  as 
on  the  night  before.  He  would  have  given  way,  he 
feared,  had  he  made  the  effort  only  to  keep  awake, 
with  no  other  exercise  of  the  mind  than  thinking  of 
the  cold. 

The  long  night  was  over  at  last  and  the  breaking 
of  dawn  gladdened  the  heart  of  the  sufferer.  On 
looking  off,  after  a  while,  he  saw  through  the  dry 
brush  a  building  several  miles  away  in  the  valley 
below  on  the  other  side  of  a  large  forest.  He  was 
somewhat  perplexed  as  to  the  identity  of  the  house, 
although  he  knew  of  no  other  house  very  near  the 
Mountain,  his  confusion  being  due  to  his  mistaking 
Mount  Jefferson  for  Mount  Washington,  which 
latter  is  not  visible  from  the  place  where  he  was. 

When  he  realized  that  the  building  was  not  a 
297 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

product  of  his  imagination,  he  crawled  forth  to  the 
front  of  the  rock  to  reconnoiter,  supporting  himself 
on  it  and  stamping  his  feet  to  restore  animation  to 
them.  After  about  two  hours  he  was  able  to  walk, 
and  then  with  painful  steps  he  ascended  to  the  tract 
above  the  brush  to  get  a  clear  view  to  aid  him  in 
determining  the  course  to  be  pursued.  Deeming  it 
unwise  to  take  a  straight  line  down  the  Mountain 
and  through  the  forests  to  the  Glen  House,  because 
of  the  obstacles  and  the  chances  of  losing  his  way, 
he  decided  that  he  ought  to  encircle  the  Mountain 
in  the  opposite  direction  from  that  of  the  previous 
day,  and,  accordingly,  he  started  off  in  that  direc- 
tion, hobbling  along  in  his  enfeebled  condition,  his 
mind  supported  by  the  hope  that  each  step  was 
bringing  him  nearer  the  outlet. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  day  he  halted  upon  an 
elevated  fiat  rock  to  look  about  and  lay  out  a  course 
as  free  as  possible  from  impediments.  Before,  how- 
ever, he  could  adopt  his  plan  of  taking  a  range,  if 
possible,  a  hundred  feet  higher  up  the  Mountain,  as 
he  was  about  to  move  on,  to  his  "joy  and  astonish- 
ment," he  saw  a  party  of  men  just  coming  into  view 
around  the  angle  of  the  bluff.  They  appeared  to 
be  looking  for  some  object  in  the  snow.  Without 
any  thought  that  they  were  searching  for  him.  Dr. 
Ball  shouted  to  them,  whereupon  they  all  stopped 
short  and  looked  at  him  with  manifest  amaze- 
ment. Soon  Mr.  Hall,  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the 
Summit  House  and  the  leader,  recovering  somewhat 
from  his  surprise,  came  forward  and  then  stopped 
and  put  several  questions  to  the  doctor.   From  his 

298 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

manner  of  asking  them  and  receiving  the  answers 
was  made  evident  his  wonder,  for  it  seemed  as  if  he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  believe  that  the  answerer 
was  actually  the  man  who  had  left  the  Glen  House 
Wednesday  afternoon.  Mr.  Hall's  companions,  all 
experienced  guides,  gathered  around  and  looked  at 
Dr.  Ball,  too  astonished  to  speak.  The  party  had 
followed  his  tracks,  but,  losing  them  in  the  brush, 
they  were  endeavoring  to  rediscover  them  by  ex- 
tending their  line,  when  they  heard  his  shout. 

So  parched  and  dry  was  Dr.  Ball's  mouth  and 
throat  that  he  could  not  swallow  food.  Unfortu- 
nately, his  rescuers  had  provided  nothing  to  drink, 
so  he  was  unable  to  obtain  any  relief  from  his 
thirst  until  they  had  gone  some  distance  on  their 
return,  when  two  swallows  of  water  were  obtained 
from  a  rock  which  had  a  small  hollow  at  the  top. 
Now  that  the  doctor  had  not  to  rely  upon  himself, 
his  strength  was  less  and  he  could  not  walk  so  firmly 
as  before.  Throwing  his  arms  around  the  necks  of 
two  of  the  party,  he  walked  on,  with  this  assistance, 
between  them.  After  a  while  they  came  to  the 
regular  path  and  then  they  descended  the  Ledge  to 
the  Camp  House,  where  Mr.  Myers  welcomed  the 
doctor  as  one  from  the  dead.  The  distance  to  the 
place  where  he  was  found  was  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  and  from  his  encampment  about  two  miles. 
On  Dr.  Ball's  remarking  that  he  believed  he  would 
have  reached  the  Camp  House  alone,  as  he  was  at 
last  on  the  right  course,  Mr.  Hall  expressed  a  differ- 
ent opinion  and  called  his  attention  to  the  clouds 
which  had  gathered  and  had  shut  in  the  view. 

299 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Here  the  doctor's  feet  were  examined  and,  being 
found  still  frozen,  were  plunged  into  cold  water 
from  melted  snow  and  ice  to  remove  the  frost. 
After  being  somewhat  rested,  he  was  placed  upon  a 
horse,  which,  for  many  years  accustomed  to  the 
Mountains,  carried  him  very  steadily,  guardedly 
stepping  around  or  over  stones,  stumps,  and  other 
obstacles,  for  a  mile  and  a  half  over  the  new  road. 
When  they  came  to  the  finished  part  of  the  road, 
Mr.  Thompson,  who  had  arranged  with  the  party 
to  be  informed,  by  means  of  signal  flags,  when  Dr. 
Ball's  body  should  be  found,  and  who  had  watched 
the  men  with  a  telescope  as  they  advanced  over  the 
Mountain  and  returned,  met  them  with  his  horses 
and  carriage.  Welcoming  the  doctor  "back  alive," 
Mr.  Thompson  observed,  "You  have  been  through 
what  no  other  person  has,  or  probably  will  again, 
in  a  thousand  years." 

The  sufferer,  having  been  transferred  to  the  car- 
riage and  covered  with  blankets,  which  protected 
him  from  the  cold  and  the  rain,  arrived  at  the  Glen 
House  about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  progress 
being  necessarily  slow  because  of  his  sensitive  body. 
Welcome,  indeed,  to  him  was  the  substantial  hotel, 
and  even  more  grateful,  if  possible,  to  him  were  the 
sympathetic  faces  and  solicitous  words  of  the  in- 
mates. 

Here,  under  the  kind  ministrations  of  the  women 
of  the  household,  he  was  made  as  comfortable  as  he 
could  be.  A  physician  from  Gorham  was  in  attend- 
ance on  the  patient,  and  the  latter's  brother.  Dr.  S. 
Ball,  of  Boston,  came  to  look  after  him.   For  a  few 

300 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

days  his  sufferings  were  comparatively  light.  There 
was  general  prostration  of  his  system,  with  some 
fever,  an  insatiable  thirst,  and  frequent  violent 
tremblings  of  the  body,  due  to  chills.  His  feet  and 
hands  were  as  if  dead  and  were  discolored  to  black- 
ness, distorted  by  swelling,  and  covered  with  water- 
blisters.  Above  the  injuries  the  pain  was  severe, 
and  at  times,  when  cramp  set  in,  excruciating. 

After  having  remained  about  a  week  at  the  Glen 
House,  the  doctor  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  be 
driven  to  Gorham,  riding  very  comfortably  on  a  sofa 
placed  in  a  carriage,  whence  the  train  was  taken  to 
Boston.  There,  under  the  care  and  treatment  of 
his  brother,  Dr.  S.  Ball,  and  Dr.  H.  Barnes,  after 
remaining  for  twelve  weeks  in  a  very  helpless  condi- 
tion, his  general  health  was  quite  restored,  and  his 
injured  members  were  by  the  1st  of  March,  1856, 
again  usable  to  a  moderate  degree. 

Such  is  the  record  of  this  remarkable  case  of  sixty 
hours'  exposure  on  the  Mountains.^  Mr.  Hall  truly 
remarked  in  a  letter  to  the  doctor's  brother,  "There 
is  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  White  Mountains  to 
compare  with  this  case  of  your  brother ;  and  I  am  very 
sure  its  parallel  will  not  be  known  in  time  to  come." 

By  a  curious  irony  of  fate,  this  man,  who  survived 
the  cold  snowstorm  and  freezing  wind  of  the  White 
Mountains  and  endured  such  bitter  sufferings  from 
frost,  died,  four  years  later,  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine, 
in  Chiriqui,  Panama. 

To  a  chapter  dealing  with  casualties  may  perhaps 

*  My  account  of  Dr.  Ball's  experience  is  drawn  from  his  own  book, 
Three  Days  on  the  White  Mountains,  published  in  1856. 

301 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

appropriately  be  added  a  brief  record  of  some  note- 
worthy convulsions  of  Nature,  which  altered,  for  a 
time  at  least,  the  appearance  of  the  Mountain  land- 
scape, and  which  in  one  case  since  the  famous  dis- 
aster of  1826  resulted  in  the  loss  of  human  life. 
Landslides  of  greater  or  less  magnitude  have  always 
been  frequent  occurrences  in  the  White  Mountains. 
Torrential  rains  acting  upon  the  loose  thin  soil  of 
the  upper  portions  of  the  slopes,  or  upon  the  sur- 
faces of  high  areas  denuded  of  trees  by  fire,  are  usu- 
ally responsible  for  these  natural  phenomena.  In 
the  prehistoric  days  they  were,  as  has  been  noted, 
one  of  the  causes  of  the  Indians'  dread  of  the  loftier 
summits,  the  aborigines  attributing  the  noise  which 
attended  the  slides  to  the  supposed  superior  beings 
with  which  their  superstition  peopled  the  higher  re- 
gions. In  historical  times  several  slides  have  occurred 
which  are  memorable  for  their  extent  or  for  the  dam- 
age they  have  done.  The  most  noted  of  all  is,  of 
course,  the  Willey  Slide  of  1826,  which  has  been  re- 
corded in  an  earlier  chapter. 

In  the  autumn  of  1869,  exceptionally  heavy  rains 
were  experienced  in  the  White  Mountain  region  and 
in  consequence  a  number  of  disastrous  avalanches 
occurred.  On  October  4,  there  was  a  landslide  on 
Carter  Dome,  by  which  the  mountain  was  stripped 
to  its  bed  ledges  for  a  distance  of  nearly  a  mile  on 
its  north  and  west  sides.  An  indirect  result  of  the 
storm  which  caused  this  slide  was  the  death  of 
Mr.  Thompson,  proprietor  of  the  Glen  House,  who, 
as  has  been  told  elsewhere,  when  attempting  to 
avert  the  destruction  of  his  mill  was  swept  away  by 

302 


CASUALTIES  ON  PRESIDENTIAL  RANGE 

the  torrent  of  water  and  debris  which  rushed  down 
the  narrow  glen  of  the  Peabody  River. 

At  this  time  a  slide  of  immense  magnitude  dev- 
astated a  vast  area  on  Tripyramid,  that  mysterious 
triple-crowned  mountain  in  the  Waterville  region. 
The  denuded  area  has  a  length  of  two  and  a  half 
miles  and  varies  in  width  from  thirty  feet  at  the 
upper  extremity,  which  is  but  two  hundred  feet 
below  the  top  of  the  peak,  to  more  than  a  thousand 
feet  at  the  lower  end,  where  the  accumulated  debris 
spreads  over  the  meadows. 

Again,  in  1885,  Tripyramid  was  the  scene  of 
slides  greater  than  that  of  1869.  They  occurred 
about  the  middle  of  August  after  several  hard  rains. 
In  both  cases,  owing  to  the  wilderness  nature  of  the 
region,  the  slides  were  attended  with  no  loss  of  life 
or  property. 

A  striking  freak  of  Nature,  which  formerly  added 
to  the  interest  of  that  great  scenic  feature  at  the 
southern  entrance  of  the  Franconia  Notch,  the 
famous  Flume,  was  the  suspension  of  a  huge  boulder 
between  the  walls  of  the  narrowing  upper  part  of 
the  canyon.  There  it  was  held,  doubtless  for  cen- 
turies, tightly  gripped  by  the  opposing  cliffs,  mid- 
way between  the  rim  and  the  floor  of  the  chasm, 
and  under  it  thousands  of  visitors  passed  with  no 
thought  of  the  possibility  of  its  ever  being  dislodged. 
The  enormous  rock  was,  however,  swept  away  on 
June  20,  1883,  when  an  avalanche,  caused  by  heavy 
rains  on  the  peaks  above,  crashed  down  through  the 
Flume.  As  compensation  for  the  carrying  away  of 
the  boulder,  the  landslide  lengthened  and  deepened 

303 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  gorge  and  added  to  its  attractions  two  new 
waterfalls,  one  of  them  the  very  beautiful  cascade 
at  its  head. 

On  July  10,  1885,  the  great  slide  took  place  on 
Cherry  Mountain,  descending  the  Owl's  Head  peak 
on  the  north  side.  Itsd6bris  —  broken  trees,  mud, 
rocks,  and  earth  —  was  carried  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountain,  making  a  two-mile  track  of  devastation, 
and  was  mostly  deposited  on  the  farm  of  Oscar 
Stanley,  where  it  wrecked  the  house,  killed  several 
cattle,  and  mortally  injured  Donald  Walker,  one  of 
the  farmhands.  For  years  the  vast  scar  of  this  slide, 
known  as  the  "Stanley  Slide,"  was  plainly  visible 
from  Jefferson,  but  of  late  years  it  has  become  over- 
grown again  and  so  is  now  much  less  conspicuous. 


XIV 

WINTER  ASCENTS  OF  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  —  THE 
WINTER  OCCUPATION  OF  MOUNT  MOOSILAUKE 
AND  OF  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  —  THE  U.S.  SIG- 
NAL  SERVICE  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

The  winter  ascent  of  Mount  Washington,  a  feat 
now,  in  these  mountaineering  days,  rather  fre- 
quently accomplished  by  hardy  members  of  the 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club,  by  sturdy  collegians 
of  the  Dartmouth  Outing  Club,  and  by  a  few  others, 
is  an  excursion  of  considerable  difficulty  and  not  a 
little  danger.  It  often  gives  opportunity  for  some 
real  Alpine  mountaineering,^  and  thus  offers  the 
nearest  approach  in  the  Eastern  United  States  to 
such  mountain-climbing  as  is  undertaken  in  the 
summer  in  the  playground  of  Europe  and  in  the 
Canadian  Rockies. 

The  first  ascent  in  winter  was  not  made  for  pleas- 
ure, as  are  all  of  the  ascents  of  the  present  time  and 
as  were  many  of  those  achieved  in  the  past,  but  in 
the  performance  of  a  duty.  Lucius  Hartshorn,  of 
Lancaster,  son-in-law  of  Samuel  F.  Spaulding,  one 
of  the  proprietors  of  the  Tip-Top  House,  was  a 

^  That  the  climbing  of  "the  crown  of  New  England"  in  winter  is 
regarded  as  in  the  same  category  with  and  as  comparable  with  the 
most  strenuous  mountaineering  exploits,  is  borne  witness  to  by  the 
fact  of  the  inclusion  of  an  article  on  "  Mount  Washington  in  Winter," 
by  Edward  L.  Wilson,  in  the  volume  on  Mountain  Climbing  in  "The 
Out-of-Door  Library,"  in  which  volume  the  companion  articles  have 
to  do  with  the  Alps,  and  Mounts  ^tna,  Ararat,  and  St.  Elias. 

305 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

deputy  sheriff  of  Coos  County,  and  as  such  was 
employed  by  his  father-in-law,  in  the  winter  of  1858, 
to  go  up  the  Mountain  and  make  an  attachment  of 
property  at  the  Summit,  in  connection  with  liti- 
gation as  to  the  title.  The  noted  guide,  Benjamin 
F.  Osgood,  of  the  Glen  House,  who  died  in  Decem- 
ber, 1907,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight,  was  Mr. 
Hartshorn's  companion  in  this  first  scaling  of  Mount 
Washington  in  winter,  which  was  done  on  the  7th 
of  December  in  the  first-named  year.  Their  course 
was  up  the  carriage  road  to  the  Halfway  House  and 
thence  over  the  crust  to  the  top.  Mr.  Osgood,  who 
had  piloted  many  distinguished  men  through  the 
Mountains  in  the  old  Concord  coaches  or  on  horse- 
back over  the  Mountain  trails,  and  who  had  a  large 
fund  of  reminiscences  of  the  early  days,  used  often 
to  tell  of  his  thrilling  experience  on  this  historic 
occasion. 

Some  of  the  details  of  their  stay  on  the  Summit 
and  of  the  descent  are  given  in  a  contemporary  issue 
of  the  Cods  Republican.  On  arriving,  they  immedi- 
ately took  measures  to  enter  one  of  the  houses, 
which,  as  these  were  covered  with  snow,  was  a  work 
requiring  time.  Unable  to  force  an  entrance  at  the 
doors,  they  finally  got  in  through  a  window,  on 
which  the  frost  was  a  foot  and  a  half  in  thickness. 
The  interior  of  the  hotel  was  like  a  tomb,  the  walls 
and  all  the  furniture  being  draped  with  some  four 
inches  of  frost,  while  the  air  was  extremely  biting, 
and  the  darkness  was  such  that  a  lamp  was  neces- 
sary to  enable  them  to  distinguish  objects.  As  de- 
lay was  dangerous  in  the  extreme,  the  two  men,  the 

306 


':'  .0'i 


y 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

legal  duty  having  been  performed,  prepared  to  re- 
turn. Upon  emerging,  they  saw  to  the  southwest  a 
cloud,  which  was  coming  on  toward  them  with 
alarming  swiftness  and  which  rapidly  increased  in 
volume.  Knowing  that  to  be  caught  in  this  frost 
cloud  would  probably  be  fatal,  they  hurried  on  and 
just  managed  to  reach  the  woods,  at  the  base  of  the 
Ledge,  when  it  enfolded  them.  So  icy  and  penetrat- 
ing was  it  that  to  have  encountered  it  on  the  unpro- 
tected part  of  the  Mountain  would  have  been  to 
have  perished  in  its  enveloping  pall.  The  intrepid 
pair  reached  the  Glen  in  safety,  where  they  received 
a  hearty  welcome  from  their  anxious  friends. 

Another  noteworthy  winter  ascent  was  accom- 
plished on  February  lo-ii,  1862,  by  John  H. 
Spaulding,  Chapin  C.  Brooks,  and  Franklin  White, 
a  photographer,  all  of  Lancaster,  who  spent  two 
days  and  nights  in  the  old  Summit  House. 

From  a  graphic  account  of  the  visit,  written  by 
Mr.  Spaulding,  we  learn  that  they  started  from  the 
Glen  House  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  on  the 
loth  in  bright  moonlight  with  ample  packs  and  pro- 
visions. Walking  slowly  up  the  carriage  road  on 
snowshoes  in  the  still  night,  they  arrived  at  the 
Ledge  after  midnight.  In  this  first  portion  of  the 
ascent,  the  glittering  crust,  the  tree-shadows  across 
their  path,  and  the  white,  winding  road  and  con- 
trasting evergreen  thickets  all  combined  to  form  a 
most  beautiful  scene,  while  at  the  place  of  rest  a 
weird  picture  was  presented  to  them,  formed  by  the 
ruins  of  the  great  barn  built  the  previous  season,  and 
by  the  fire-scathed  trees,  standing  in  bold  relief  in 

307 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  moonlight,  with  the  glittering  Ledge  itself  and 
the  dark  old  shanty  in  the  background.  Kindling  a 
fire  at  the  shelter,  they  drowsed  until  daybreak  on 
an  old  straw  bed  laid  on  a  snowdrift.  At  sunrise  they 
began  the  onward  march,  without  snowshoes,  ad- 
vancing by  cutting  steps  in  the  ice.  At  five  miles 
up,  a  wide  ice-field  was  encountered,  necessitating 
the  cutting  of  deep  steps,  and  at  about  six  miles,  a 
deep  drift  impeded  their  progress  and  prevented 
them  from  following  the  road.  Here  lunch  was 
taken,  and  they  found  the  thermometer  to  register 
in  a  rising  wind  27°  above  zero.  Storm-clouds  over 
toward  Mount  Carter  warned  them  to  hasten  on, 
which  they  did  as  rapidly  as  circumstances  would 
permit.  As  they  approached  the  top,  they  were  en- 
wrapped in  a  heavy  black  cloud,  which  froze  upon 
them.  On  arriving  at  the  Summit,  the  hardy  climb- 
ers found  the  two  houses  covered  with  glittering  ice 
and  with  curious  frost  feathers  standing  out  on  the 
northerly  side.  Walking  up  a  drift,  they  broke  away 
the  ice  from  the  south  gable-end  window  of  the 
Summit  House,  and,  taking  out  the  window,  entered 
the  attic.  As  soon  as  possible  a  stove  was  brought 
up  from  a  lower  room,  some  wood  secured  from  the 
Tip-Top  House,  and  a  fire  kindled.  This  done,  the 
doughty  trio,  after  further  fortifying  themselves  by 
piling  up  a  barricade  of  mattresses  around  the  stove, 
passed  a  fairly  comfortable  night.  But  their  stay 
had  to  be  prolonged  beyond  its  intended  duration 
of  a  single  night,  for  in  the  morning  they  found 
themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce  snowstorm,  and 
on  that  account  they  were  compelled  to  endure,  as 

308 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

it  turned  out,  a  siege,  the  storm  driving  by  their 
enforced  habitation  for  thirty-six  hours.  Some  idea 
of  the  Arctic  conditions  within  the  hotel  may  be 
gained  from  the  facts  that  snow  and  ice  lay  piled  all 
about  from  three  inches  to  five  feet  deep,  that  the 
furniture  was  set  in  feathery  white  casings,  and  that 
snow-wreaths  and  icicles  were  everywhere  on  the 
walls  and  roof.  Most  magnificent  scenes  that  beggar 
all  description  were  witnessed;  the  sun  was  seen  to 
set  in  a  vast  "snow-bank,"  and  a  hundred  glittering 
peaks  were  beheld  in  the  moonlight.  A  return  to 
the  Glen  in  another  thick  snowstorm  completed  a 
trip  with  which  they  afterwards  felt  "perfectly 
satisfied." 

These  two  winter  ascents  are  all  that  are  on  record 
previous  to  the  winter  of  1870-71,  during  which,  as 
will  be  related  farther  on,  ascents  were  numerous. 

Before  recording  any  more  of  these  alpine  experi- 
ences, however,  the  steps  which  brought  about  the 
establishment  of  a  meteorological  station  on  New 
England's  highest  summit,  including  especially  the 
winter  occupations  of  Moosilauke  and  Washington, 
demand  notice.  The  two  expeditions  just  mentioned, 
the  stories  of  which  are  now  to  be  narrated,  not  only 
demonstrated  the  possibility  of  human  beings  suc- 
cessfully braving  the  frost  and  storms  of  the  Arctic 
winter  of  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington  and 
enduring  the  inconveniences  and  privations  incident 
to  winter  life  in  such  a  place,  but  also  showed  the 
feasibility  of  making  and  recording  weather  obser- 
vations under  such  circumstances. 

The  project  of  a  winter  stay  on  Mount  Washing- 
309 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ton  was  a  long-cherished  one  in  the  minds  of  J.  H. 
Huntington  and  C.  H.  Hitchcock,  graduates  of 
Amherst  and  associates  on  the  geological  surveys  of 
Vermont  and  New  Hampshire. 

The  former,  whose  acquaintance  with  the  White 
Mountains  dated  back  to  1856  and  1857,  first  raised 
the  question  of  the  possibility  of  such  an  undertak- 
ing while  accompanying  an  expedition,  along  Lake 
Champlain,  of  a  survey  party  led  by  the  latter  in 
1858.^  At  the  same  time  he  expressed  a  willingness 
to  make  the  experiment.  After  Mr.  Huntington  had 
tried  in  vain  to  secure  the  pecuniary  support  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  by  appealing  to  Professor 
Joseph  Henry,  who  declined  to  undertake  the  enter- 
prise at  that  time  on  account  of  the  many  obstacles 
in  the  way,  and  after  Professor  Hitchcock,  who  vis- 
ited the  White  Mountains  for  the  first  time  later  in 
that  year,  had  also  made  an  unsuccessful  appeal  to 
the  same  source,  the  project  had  to  be  abandoned. 
It  was  revived  ten  years  later,  when  Professor 
Hitchcock  was  appointed  State  Geologist,  and  Mr. 
Huntington,  recalling  the  old  conversations  about 
spending  a  winter  on  Mount  Washington,  applied 
for  and  received  the  appointment  of  an  assistant  on 
the  geological  survey. 

Application  for  the  use  of  the  Tip-Top  House  for 
scientific  purposes  during  the  winter  of   1869-70 

*  In  1859,  Jonathan  Merrill,  a  then  recent  graduate  of  Dartmouth 
College,  conceived  the  idea  of  spending  a  winter  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton. He  received  the  encouragement  of  Professor  Henry,  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution,  and  was  given  permission  to  occupy  one  of 
the  houses;  but  an  unexpected  snowstorm  delayed  some  of  his  prep- 
arations, and  this  and  other  considerations  compelled  him  to  abandon 
the  adventure. 

310 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

failed  to  secure  the  consent  of  the  lessee,  Colonel 
Hitchcock,  of  the  Alpine  House,  a  fortunate  refusal 
for  the  applicants,  as  it  proved,  for  Professor  Hitch- 
cock having,  in  a  conversation  with  William  Little, 
of  Manchester,  made  known  to  that  gentleman  his 
disappointment  at  not  being  able  to  secure  quarters 
on  Mount  Washington,  unexpectedly  and  to  his 
great  delight  received  from  him  the  offer  of  the  use 
without  charge  of  the  house  on  Mount  Moosilauke. 
This  proffer  being  communicated  to  Mr.  Hunting- 
ton, he  accepted  it  without  a  moment's  hesitation, 
so  eager  was  he  to  spend  a  winter  at  such  a  height. 

Supplies  were  carried  to  the  summit  of  the  Benton 
mountain  and  preparations  were  made  to  begin 
Arctic  housekeeping  the  latter  part  of  December. 
Huntington's  expected  companion  having  been  com- 
pelled, in  consequence  of  being  offered  an  advan- 
tageous situation  in  Georgia,  to  give  up  his  plan  of 
spending  the  winter  in  a  far  different  climate,  the 
vacant  position  of  fellow  observer  was  filled  by  A.  F. 
Clough,  of  Warren,  a  photographer  by  profession 
and  a  great  lover  of  Nature.  The  experiences  of  this 
sojourn  on  Moosilauke  proved  not  only  valuable  in 
and  for  themselves,  but  also  as  preliminary  to  the 
stay  on  the  higher  mountain  the  following  winter. 
From  a  scientific  standpoint,  moreover,  the  stay  here 
proved  of  great  interest.  Indeed,  it  is  affirmed  that 
so  unusual  were  a  number  of  the  meteorological 
phenomena  observed  here  that  in  some  respects 
those  of  Mount  Washington  did  not  equal  them. 

The  first  attempt  to  ascend  the  mountain  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  up  wood  and  other  supplies  and 

311 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  fitting  up  a  room  in  the  house  failed  because  of  a 
high  wind  with  driving  snow,  which  forced  the  men 
back  by  its  fierceness  and  made  the  bridle  path  im- 
passable with  huge  drifts.  A  lame,  frost-bitten,  and 
discouraged  group  of  men  ate  their  evening  meal  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountain,  the  only  cheerful  and  hope- 
ful person  being  James  Clement,  the  pioneer  of  this 
mountain.  The  next  day,  November  24,  1869,  being 
clear  and  bright  and  everything  seeming  propitious, 
another  attempt  to  reach  the  summit  was  made,  and 
this  one  was  crowned  with  success.  Two  fine  days 
and  one  cloudy  one  were  experienced,  in  which 
period  of  time  the  preparatory  work  was  completed. 
Provisions  were  not  taken  up  until  late  in  December, 
when  they  were  transported  on  two  large  hand-sleds 
drawn  by  a  horse.  A  furious  storm  arose  the  night 
of  that  expedition,  making  venturing  out  extremely 
hazardous;  but,  having  no  fodder  for  the  horse,  the 
descent  had  to  be  made  the  following  day  in  intense 
cold  and  in  a  wind  so  fierce  that  the  men  could  not 
keep  their  footing  and  were  several  times  nearly 
blown  over  the  crest  of  the  ridge.  On  the  last  day  of 
December,  Messrs.  Huntington  and  Clough  ascended 
the  mountain  for  their  winter  stay. 

In  a  chapter  of  the  book  "Mount  Washington  in 
Winter,"  Mr.  Huntington  tells  in  a  most  interesting 
way  the  story  of  the  sojourn  on  this  perhaps  finest  of 
New  England  viewpoints.  Many  were  the  grand 
and  beautiful  scenes  beheld  by  the  two  observers 
from  this  outlook,  over  the  snow-covered  country 
in  the  various  atmospheric  conditions  experienced, 
the  summits  of  Mounts  Washington,  Lafayette,  and 

312 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

the  others,  sublime  in  their  canopy  of  snow,  often 
glittering  in  the  bright  sunlight  above  the  clouds,  or 
presenting  ashy  pale  or  dark,  forbidding  aspects 
under  the  shadows  of  the  clouds,  or  being  suffused 
with  rosy  light  at  sunset.  Hardly  had  the  two  men 
got  settled  in  their  new  quarters,  when,  on  the  2d  of 
January,  they  were  visited  by  a  terrific  storm,  which 
changed  from  snow  at  daylight  to  sleet  and  then  to 
rain,  and  which  continued  with  unabated  violence 
until  9  P.M.,  after  which  hour  there  were  lulls,  mid- 
night finding  it  considerably  diminished  in  fury.  At 
eight  in  the  morning  the  velocity  of  the  wind  was 
seventy  miles,  and  at  twelve  noon,  when  the  storm 
had  become  "a  perfect  tempest,"  Mr.  Clough,  deter- 
mined to  know  the  exact  rate,  succeeded,  by  clinging 
to  the  rocks,  in  placing  himself  where  he  could  expose 
the  anemometer  and  not  be  blown  away  himself, 
and  found  the  velocity  to  be  ninety-seven  and  a  half 
miles  an  hour,  the  greatest  ever  recorded  up  to  that 
time. 

Amid  Arctic  conditions  and  surroundings  such  as 
might  be  expected  on  so  high  and  exposed  a  place, 
about  two  months  were  passed.  When  the  last  of 
February  arrived,  the  weather  being  extremely  cold 
and  the  winds  violent  and  their  supply  of  wood  being 
nearly  exhausted,  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  de- 
scend. This  action  was  attended  with  much  peril  in 
a  wind  blowing  seventy  miles  an  hour  and  in  a  tem- 
perature of  zero  or  lower,  but  was  accomplished 
safely,  in  spite  of  the  facts  that  on  the  highest  part 
of  the  ridge,  Huntington,  as  he  tells  us,  was  fre- 
quently blown  from  the  ridge,  and  that  the  sled  was 

313 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

blown  out  of  Clough's  hold  and  its  standards  broken 
on  a  projecting  rock.  Compelled  by  this  mishap 
to  go  back  some  distance  to  secure  another  sled, 
Clough,  after  a  severe  struggle  in  which  he  was 
almost  overwhelmed  several  times,  eventually  man- 
aged to  achieve  his  purpose,  and,  when  the  reload- 
ing, no  easy  task  under  such  conditions,  had  been 
effected,  the  travelers  soon  succeeded  in  reaching 
the  protection  of  the  woods. 

This  stay  on  Moosilauke  having  demonstrated 
the  possibility  of  living  on  a  mountain-top  in  the 
winter  and  having  fed  the  desire  for  the  winter  occu- 
pation of  the  loftier  summit,  early  in  1870,  Messrs. 
Hitchcock  and  Huntington  began  to  contrive  ways 
and  means  to  this  end.  Renewed  application  for  the 
Tip-Top  House  being  refused  in  April,  negotiations 
for  the  use  of  the  engine-house  or  station  that  the 
Mount  Washington  Railway  Company  was  intend- 
ing to  erect  on  the  Summit  were  opened  with  the 
president,  Mr.  Marsh,  by  letter  and  interviews, 
and  eventually  the  desired  permission  was  obtained, 
although  the  building  was  not  completed. 

Efforts  to  obtain  the  necessary  funds  from  State 
and  National  authorities,^  scientific  bodies,  and  indi- 
viduals were  unavailing.    The  Government  would 

*  Probably  the  first  attempt  to  establish  a  scientific  observatory 
on  Mount  Washington  was  made  in  1853  by  D.  O.  Macomber,  presi- 
dent of  the  Carriage  Road  Company.  A  circular  was  issued,  setting 
forth  the  importance  of  such  an  enterprise  and  arguments  in  favor 
of  erecting  a  permanent  building  on  the  top  of  Mount  Washington 
for  scientific  purposes.  A  petition  to  Congress,  dated  December  I,* 
1853,  asking  for  an  appropriation  of  $50,000  and  offering  on  the  part 
of  the  road  company  to  build  an  observatory  for  the  use  of  the 
Government  was  presented,  but  nothing  came  of  the  project. . 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

not  sanction  any  special  arrangement  to  furnish  any 
newspaper  exclusively  with  weather  reports  (in  re- 
turn for  pecuniary  support,  which  one  New  York 
journal  offered  on  this  condition),  and  it  seemed 
probable  that  the  undertaking  would  have  to  be 
abandoned  when  assistance  came  from  an  unex- 
pected quarter.  In  July,  Mr.  Durgin,  of  the  Sinclair 
House  in  Bethlehem,  informed  Professor  Hitchcock 
that  a  relative  by  marriage,  S.  A.  Nelson,  of  George- 
town, Massachusetts,  was  very  much  interested  in 
the  meteorology  of  Mount  Washington  and  would 
like  to  join  the  expedition.  Mr.  Nelson  proposed,  in 
case  he  should  be  permitted  to  be  one  of  the  party, 
to  devote  himself  to  raising  funds,  which,  after  the 
formal  invitation  extended  had  been  accepted  by 
him,  he  set  about  doing.  Beginning  in  September, 
he  succeeded  in  obtaining,  by  late  December,  when 
he  joined  the  party  on  the  Mountain,  more  than 
eight  hundred  dollars. 

The  Chief  Signal  Officer,  General  A.  B.  Myer, 
offered  in  September  to  furnish  insulated  telegraph 
wire  sufficient  to  connect  the  Summit  with  the  Base, 
which,  together  with  the  necessary  instruments,  was 
duly  received  the  following  month.  In  November, 
he  informed  Professor  Hitchcock  that  he  would  de- 
tail for  duty  with  the  expedition  an  expert  operator 
and  observer,  with  a  complete  set  of  meteorological 
instruments,  and  requested  that  one  weather  report 
might  be  forwarded  to  him  daily  by  telegraph,  to  be 
bulletined  along  with  those  from  other  stations  and 
to  be  furnished  to  the  principal  daily  journals. 

Many  other  obstacles,  more  especially  such  as 
315 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

were  connected  with  the  purchase  and  transporta- 
tion of  supplies,  the  preparation  of  the  building  for 
occupancy,  and  the  procuring  of  additional  funds, 
were  eventually  overcome,  with  the  generous  help  of 
the  railway  company  and  with  the  assistance  of  ad- 
ditional subscribers  secured  as  the  result  of  a  new 
appeal. 

The  members  of  the  expedition  as  finally  organ- 
ized were:  C.  H.  Hitchcock,  State  Geologist,  with 
office  at  Hanover,  connected  by  telegraph  with  the 
Summit;  J.  H.  Huntington,  in  charge  of  the  ob- 
servatory; S.  A.  Nelson,  observer;  A.  F.  Clough, 
of  Warren,  and  H.  A.  Kimball,  of  Concord,  New 
Hampshire,  photographers,  the  former  the  original 
artist  of  the  expedition  and  the  latter  one  who  ap- 
plied for  and  received  permission  to  join  the  party; 
and  Sergeant  Theodore  Smith,  observer  and  telegra- 
pher for  the  Signal  Service. 

The  evening  of  October  8,  Mr.  Huntington  and  a 
carpenter  from  Berlin  Falls  ascended,  finding  that 
Professor  Hitchcock  and  several  other  men  on 
pleasure  bent  had  preceded  them  to  the  Summit  for 
a  brief  visit.  From  the  loth  to  the  22d,  the  two 
former  worked  at  fitting  up  the  room,  laying  the 
telegraph  wire,  and  making  other  necessary  prepa- 
rations. At  length,  everything  being  ready,  Mr. 
Huntington  promptly  climbed  the  Mountain  at  the 
time  appointed,  November  12,  and  on  the  13th 
began  to  take  and  record  daily  meteorological 
observations. 

The  dauntless  Huntington^  remained  there  alone 

*  The  deep  and  narrow  chasm,  "less  a  ravine  than  a  gulf,"  to  the 

316 


OBSERVER,  SUMMIT  OF   MOUNT   WASHING'ION 
ABOUT    1S75 


THE   SUMMIT    HOUSE    IN    WINTER,  ABOUT    1875 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

until  November  30,  when  the  two  photographers, 
accompanied  by  Charles  B.  Cheney,  of  Orford,  and 
C.  F.  Bracy,  of  Warren,  arrived  after  a  most  thrilling 
experience  in  a  wind  of  seventy  miles  an  hour  and  a 
temperature  down  to  zero  or  below.  In  this  ascent 
Mr.  Kimball  became  so  extremely  exhausted  that 
his  reason  tottered  and  he  became  indifferent  to  his 
fate,  and  he  would  have  perished  had  it  not  been  for 
heroic  measures  to  save  him  used  by  Messrs.  Clough 
and  Cheney.  At  the  foot  of  Jacob's  Ladder  the  men 
became  separated,  three  of  the  party  leaving  the 
railroad  track,  while  the  other,  Mr.  Bracy,  remained 
on  it.  The  latter,  after  a  narrow  escape  from  death 
by  falling  through  the  trestle  to  the  gorge  beneath, 
reached  the  Summit  about  seven  o'clock.  The  others, 
failing  to  get  any  answer  from  him  in  the  roar  of  the 
tempest,  made  their  way  slowly  by  repeated  short 
advances  after  brief  rests  in  a  prostrate  position. 
Three  hours  or  more  of  this  ascent  were  made  in  the 
darkness  of  a  moonless  night,  and  it  took  half  an 
hour's  time  to  make  the  thirty  rods  from  the  Lizzie 
Bourne  monument  to  the  observatory.  The  inci- 
dents of  this  perilous  adventure  in  such  tempestuous 
weather,  and  under  such  other  conditions  as  have 
been  noted,  rendered  the  experience  unforgettable 
by  its  participants  and   make  the  account  of  it, 

north  of  Tuckerman's  Ravine,  was  named  "Huntington's  Ravine" 
in  his  honor,  by  his  companions  in  this  expedition.  Professor  Hunt- 
ington was  an  indefatigable  explorer  of  the  White  Hills.  Sweetser, 
whose  guide-book  explorations  were  made  in  1875,  says  of  him:  "To 
the  last-named  [Professor  J.  H.  Huntington]  the  public  owes  all  the 
best  features  of  this  White  Mountain  Guide-Book,  since  he  accom- 
panied and  practically  directed  the  most  arduous  surveys  and  pio- 
neering expedition  of  the  Guide  parties." 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

as  narrated  in  detail  in  "Mount  Washington  in 
Winter,"  impressive  to  the  imagination  of  the 
reader. 

Sergeant  Smith  arrived  on  December  4,  and  on  the 
2 1  St  of  that  month  Professor  Hitchcock  and  Messrs. 
Nelson,  L.  B.  Newell,  Eben  Thompson,  and  F. 
Woodbridge  came  up,  making  the  party  complete, 
with  some  visitors. 

Mr.  Nelson  and  Sergeant  Smith  spent  the  entire 
winter  on  the  Mountain,  Professor  Huntington  most 
of  it,  and  Messrs.  Clough  and  Kimball  a  part  of  it. 
Professor  Hitchcock  joined  his  associates  at  the 
Summit  from  time  to  time,  his  last  stay  being  from 
April  26  to  May  i. 

Visitors  were  fairly  numerous  and  ever  welcome. 
Some  of  them  have  been  already  named.  L.  L. 
Holden,^  "Ranger"  of  the  Boston  Journal,  visited 
the  Summit  twice,  once  in  February  with  another 
newspaper  man,  P.  B.  Cogswell,  of  the  Concord  Daily 
Monitor,  and  Mr.  Clough  as  companions,  and  again 
from  April  29  to  May  9,  his  companions  this  time 
in  the  ascent  being  Professor  Huntington,  who  had 
been  down  for  a  day  or  two  to  fulfill  a  lecture  engage- 
ment, and  Eben  Thompson,  of  Dartmouth  College, 
a  previous  visitor.  Other  visitors  were  Messrs. 
Walter  and  Charles  L.  Aiken,  George  C.  Procter, 
and  Michael  ("Mike")  Mularvey  (of  Marshfield) 
in  February;  the  late  Benjamin  W.  Kilburn,  of 
Littleton,  one  of  the  pioneers  in  the  art  of  stereo- 

^  Mr.  Holden's  description  of  his  ascent  in  February  and  his 
account  of  his  ascent,  experiences  during  his  stay,  and  descent  in 
the  spring  are  printed  in  Mount  Washington  in  Winter. 

318 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

graphic  photography,  Edward  L.  Wilson,  editor  of 
the  Philadelphia  Photographer,  whose  article  on 
"Mount  Washington  in  Winter"  has  been  men- 
tioned, and  "Mike"  on  March  i  and  2;  Dr.  Rogers 
and  Mr.  Nutter,  of  Lancaster,  in  March;  Messrs. 
Clough  and  Cheney  again,  in  April. ^  Seventy  as- 
cents in  all  were  made  that  winter  by  the  indefati- 
gable Professor  Huntington  and  others. 

The  winter  passed  very  pleasantly.  There  was 
much  to  do  in  keeping  the  telegraph  line  open  and 
repairing  breaks,  in  making  the  meteorological  ob- 
servations, in  housekeeping,  in  maintaining  a  com- 
fortable or  at  least  livable  degree  of  warmth  within 
the  house,  in  taking  photographs,  in  writing  reports, 
etc.,  and  in  various  other  duties. 

The  lowest  temperature  experienced  was  59°  below 
zero  at  three  a.m.  on  Sunday,  Februarys.  The 
mean  temperature  for  January  22  was  -28.5°,  and 
for  February  4  was  -35°.  All  day  and  all  night  of 
the  former  date  the  wind  raged,  at  times  blowing  in 
gusts  of  every  direction  and  of  high  velocity.  With 
two  fires  maintained  at  red  heat  all  night,  two  of  the 
party  sitting  up  for  that  purpose  (there  was  little 
sleep  for  anybody),  the  room  was  cold. 

Saturday,  February  4,  was  a  strenuous  day,  as 
besides  the  intense  cold  the  wind  was  very  high, 
some  of  the  gusts  before  morning  undoubtedly  at- 
taining a  velocity  of  one  hundred  miles  an  hour. 

^  This  ascent,  the  most  difficult  one  of  the  winter,  was  made  on 
the  5th,  in  a  furious  snowstorm,  the  temperature  being  nearly  zero 
and  the  wind  at  one  time  blowing  more  than  eighty  miles  an  hour. 
The  men  succeeded  in  it  only  because  of  their  superior  powers  of 
endurance. 

319 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

The  house  rocked  and  trembled  and  groaned, 
movable  articles  were  continually  on  the  move,  — 
books,  for  example,  repeatedly  dropping  from  the 
shelves.  In  ''sawing  off  "  a  piece  of  salt  pork,  which 
operation  was  like  "cutting  into  a  block  of  gypsum," 
Mr.  Nelson  was  out  only  five  minutes,  but  froze  his 
fingers.  The  butter  for  the  Sunday  morning  break- 
fast had  to  be  cut,  with  a  chisel  and  hammer,  from 
the  tubs,  which  stood  in  the  outer  room. 

The  highest  wind  velocity  recorded  was  ninety- 
two  miles  an  hour  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of 
December  15,  1870,  when  the  most  severe  storm  of 
all  that  they  experienced  raged.  After  that  hour  it 
was  not  safe  to  venture  out  with  the  anemometer, 
for  the  wind  kept  increasing,  reaching,  it  was  esti- 
mated, at  its  highest  a  velocity  from  one  hundred 
and  ten  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles.  During 
this  storm  so  great  was  the  force  of  the  wind  that 
three-inch  planks  bolted  across  the  opening  in  the 
shed  where  the  train  enters  were  pressed  in  four  or 
more  inches  and  the  whole  building  had  an  unpleas- 
ant vibratory  motion. 

On  many  days  the  high  winds  and  stormy  condi- 
tions confined  the  observers  to  the  house;  observa- 
tions were  often  taken  under  great  difficulties  and 
at  considerable  peril  on  this  account;  and  many  a 
night  sleep  was  well-nigh  impossible  on  account  of 
the  roaring  of  the  wind,  the  creaking  and  groaning 
and  oscillation  of  the  building,  and  the  noise  due  to 
the  driving  of  particles  of  ice  by  the  wind  against  it. 
Repairing  the  telegraph  line,  a  frequent  necessity, 
gave  occasion  for  some  arduous  and  often  dangerous 

320 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

trips  down  the  railway,  and  many  times  other  trips 
were  taken  which  entailed  severe  exposure. 

Altogether,  the  "expedition"  was  a  most  notable 
one,  not  only  for  its  scientific  importance,  but  also 
for  its  human  interest  as  demonstrating  what  severe 
conditions  of  winter  cold  and  wind  and  storm  human 
beings  can  successfully  endure  for  a  prolonged 
period.  I  have  devoted  so  much  space  to  it  not  only 
because  of  this  intrinsic  interest,  but  because  of  the 
attention  it  attracted  at  the  time  and  of  its  historical 
importance.^  From  time  to  time  there  appeared  in 
the  newspapers  references  to  the  occupation  of  the 
summit  of  Mount  Washington,  expressing  the  opin- 
ions of  various  writers,  either  upon  the  facts  reported 
or  upon  the  general  prospects  of  the  adventure. 
Many  regarded  the  project  as  idiotic,  lunatic,  or 
perfectly  chimerical,  and  the  participants  in  it  as  a 
party  of  maniacs. 

True  to  the  American  tendency  to  burlesque, 
many  of  the  articles  about  the  expedition  were  of  a 
facetious  character,  one  writer  even  preparing  what 
purported  to  be  an  official  report  of  the  expedition, 
with  a  burlesque  journal  of '  *  each  day's  proceedings." 

Convinced  that  Mount  Washington  was  a  desir- 
able place  for  a  weather  station,  the  feasibility  and 
value  of  winter  observations  on  it  and  from  it  hav- 
ing been  by  this  expedition  amply  demonstrated, 

*  All  of  the  information  here  summarized,  and  much  more,  is  con- 
tained in  that  most  entertaining,  instructive,  and  otherwise  inter- 
esting volume,  Mount  Washington  in  Winter,  prepared  by  all  the 
members  of  this  remarkable  expedition  as  their  "official  report"  to 
those  friends  who  furnished  the  means  for  establishing  and  main- 
taining this  Arctic  observatory. 

321 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  United  States  Signal  Service,  immediately  upon 
the  departure  of  the  voluntary  observers,  took  up, 
on  May  13,  1871,  the  work  of  carrying  on  meteoro- 
logical observations,  and  thereafter  maintained  the 
station  continuously  until  the  autumn  of  1887  and 
in  summer  for  five  years  more.  During  this  period 
an  immense  amount  of  valuable  data  as  to  the 
weather  conditions  of  this  point  was  obtained  and 
recorded. 

Great  were  the  hardships  endured  by  these  serv- 
ants of  the  Government  and  thrilling  were  some  of 
the  incidents  of  this  service  on  a  mountain-top.  At 
four  in  the  morning  one  day  in  January,  1877,^  the 
wind  reached  the  velocity,  never  equaled  elsewhere, 
of  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  miles  an  hour.  In  this 
gale  was  blown  down  the  engine-shed,  used  by  the 
winter  party  of  1870-71,  and  by  the  Government 
observers  until  the  erection  of  the  Signal  Station  in 
1874,  ^^^  the  board  walk  leading  from  the  hotel  to 
the  Signal  Station  was  demolished,  the  boards  being 
carried  as  if  they  were  straws  and  scattered  far  and 
wide  in  wild  confusion  over  the  top  and  sides  of  the 
Mountain. 

This  almost  inconceivable  velocity  was  equaled  at 
least  once  subsequently  and  a  rate  of  one  hundred 
and  eighty  miles  an  hour  was  attained  several  times. 
In  February,  1886,  in  one  of  the  greatest  storms  ever 

^  I  get  this  date  from  Drake,  The  Heart  of  the  White  Mountains. 
The  author  tells,  in  chapters  vil  and  viii  of  his  "Second  Journey," 
of  his  ascent  and  descent  by  the  carriage  road  and  stay  on  the  Summit 
in  May,  1877,  when  he  saw  the  boards  scattered  about  and  was  in- 
formed that  the  engine-house  had  been  blown  down  in  the  January 
gale.  Private  Doyle's  story,  as  narrated  farther  on,  is  given  in  this 
source. 

322 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

known,  the  mercury  dropped  to  51°  below  zero  and 
the  wind  lashed  the  Summit  with  a  fury  which 
threatened  to  sweep  it  clear  of  the  works  of  man. 
One  building  was  torn  down,  some  of  its  constituent 
parts  being  flung  violently  against  the  stanch  little 
Signal  Station,  which,  fortunately,  was  so  protected 
by  a  tough  thick  coating  of  frost  feathers  that  its 
doors,  windows,  and  roof  escaped.  During  this  gale, 
when  a  rate  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-four  miles 
was  recorded,  the  anemometer  itself  was  carried 
away  from  its  bearings. 

Private  Doyle,  who  was  on  duty  in  the  station  at 
the  time  of  the  great  storm  of  January,  1877,  has 
related  his  recollections  of  it.  Anticipating,  from  the 
aspect  of  the  heavens  in  the  afternoon  preceding  the 
gale,  when  the  clouds  spread  for  miles  around  —  an 
ocean  of  frozen  vapor  —  and  became,  late  in  the  day, 
so  dense  as  to  reflect  the  colors  of  the  spectrum,  that 
some  great  atmospheric  disturbance  was  impending, 
the  observers  made  everything  snug  for  a  storm.  By 
nine  in  the  evening,  the  wind  had  increased  to  one 
hundred  miles  an  hour,  with  heavy  sleet,  making 
outside  observations  unsafe.  At  midnight,  the  veloc- 
ity of  the  storm  was  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
and  the  thermometer  registered  -  24°.  Within  the 
house,  with  the  stove  red,  it  was  hard  to  get  the 
temperature  above  freezing,  and  water  froze  within 
three  feet  of  the  fire.  The  uproar  was  deafening.  At 
one  o'clock,  the  wind  rose  to  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  raising  the  carpet  a  foot  from  the  floor,  and 
dashing  all  the  loose  ice  on  top  of  the  Mountain 
against  the  building  in  one  continuous  volley.   Not 

323 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

long  after  came  a  crash  of  glass.  With  the  greatest 
difficulty  the  two  men,  working  in  the  dark,  suc- 
ceeded in  closing  the  storm-shutters  from  the  inside. 
Hardly  had  they  done  this,  when  a  heavy  gust  burst 
them  open  again,  apparently  as  easily  as  if  they  had 
not  been  fastened  at  all.  After  a  hard  tussle,  they 
again  secured  the  windows  by  nailing  a  cleat  to  the 
floor  and  using  a  board  as  a  lever.  **  Even  then,"  said 
Private  Doyle,  "it  was  all  we  could  do  to  force  the 
shutters  back  into  place.  But  we  did  it.  We  had  to 
do  it."  The  remainder  of  the  night  was  spent  in  an 
anxious  and  alarmed  state  of  mind,  as  was  but  nat- 
ural when  they  did  not  know  but  that  at  any  mo- 
ment the  building  would  be  carried  over  into  Tucker- 
man's  Ravine  and  they  swept  into  eternity  with  it. 
Doyle  and  his  companion  took  the  precaution  to 
wrap  themselves  up  in  blankets  and  quilts,  tied 
tightly  around  them  with  ropes,  to  which  were  fas- 
tened bars  of  iron.  But  these  desperate  measures  to 
afford  a  possible  chance  of  safety  in  case  the  station 
succumbed  to  the  gale  proved  unnecessary,  for  the 
stout  little  building,  anchored  to  the  rocks  by  cables, 
successfully  weathered  this  gale  and  all  others. 

Many  similar  experiences  were  encountered  by 
these  observers  and  others.  Sometimes  the  frost 
feathers  so  obscured  the  windows  that  lights  were 
required  in  the  daytime;  at  other  times  the  wind 
tore  so  through  the  building  that  the  lamps  could 
not  burn. 

On  account  of  the  dreadful  solitude  of  this  remote 
and  lonesome  place  and  for  fear  of  accidents,  the 
Government  always  maintained  at  least  two  men  in 

324 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

the  station  and  sometimes  there  were  three  or  four, 
including  a  cook,  and  a  cat  and  a  dog.^  Their  duties 
were  multifarious  and  their  time  was  fully  occupied. 
Seven  observations  had  to  be  made  daily,  the  record- 
ing-sheet of  the  anemometer  had  to  be  changed  at 
noon,  and  three  of  the  seven  observations  had  to  be 
forwarded  in  cipher  to  the  Boston  Station.  There 
was  much  routine  office  work,  including  the  receiv- 
ing and  sending  of  letters,  and  the  filling  of  blank 
forms  with  statistics.  The  battery  and  wire  of  the 
telegraph  outfit  demanded  much  attention,  and  the 
making  of  repairs,  often  involving  the  risk  of  the 
observers'  lives  in  storm  and  cold  in  searching  for 
and  mending  a  break,  was  no  inconsiderable  part  of 
their  work.  The  stock  of  food  supplies  was  replen- 
ished in  September,  the  "refrigerator"  (the  top 
story  of  the  station)  being  stocked  with  meat  and 
poultry  already  frozen.  The  water  supply  came  from 
the  frost  feathers,  a  stock  of  which  was  always  kept 
on  hand,  and  an  icy  cold  drink  of  which  could  always 
be  found  on  the  stove,  unless  the  cook  failed  of  his 
duty. 

The  personnel  of  the  station  was  changed  fre- 
quently. Sergeant  Smith,  who  was  detailed  to 
accompany  the  voluntary  expedition,  was  relieved, 
toward  the  end  of  May,  1871,  by  Sergeant  M.  L. 

*  Many  visitors  to  the  Summit  in  former  days  were  acquainted 
with  the  beautiful  St.  Bernard  dog,  "  Medford,"  whose  graceful  form 
and  pleasing  traits  made  him  a  favorite  with  all.  Brought  to  the 
Mountain  when  he  was  a  few  months  old,  "  Medford  "  spent  his  sum- 
mers at  the  Summit  House  and  his  winters  at  the  Signal  Station  with 
the  weather  observers,  whom  he  often  accompanied  on  their  trips 
down  the  Mountain  for  the  mail.  One  of  the  best-known  dogs  in  the 
country  in  his  lifetime,  he  was  often  inquired  for  after  his  death. 

325 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Hearne.  The  saddest  and  most  harrowing  experi- 
ence of  any  observer  befell  this  gentleman.  On 
February  26,  1872,  his  assistant,  William  Stevens, 
died  of  paralysis.  For  a  day  and  two  nights,  Ser- 
geant Hearne  was  alone  with  the  dead  body,  as  no 
one  could  come  up  on  account  of  the  hurricane  and 
cold.  "  I  look  years  older,"  he  wrote,  "than  when  it 
occurred."  When  aid  came,  a  rude  coffin  and  sled 
were  made  and  a  solemn  procession  of  men  moved 
slowly  down  the  mountain-side  over  the  snow  with 
the  mortal  remains  of  the  unfortunate  observer. 

Sergeant  O.  S.  M.  Cone,  who  spent  one  summer 
and  winter  only  (1877-78)  at  the  station,  when  re- 
lieved because  of  sickness,  improvised  a  sled  with  a 
kind  of  safety  brake  and  attempted  with  his  com- 
panion, D.  C.  Murphy,  and  with  his  trunk,  to  coast 
down  the  track.  When  about  halfway  down,  the 
brake  gave  way  and  the  sled  and  its  passengers  were 
hurled  from  a  high  trestle.  Almost  miraculously 
they  escaped  death.  Cone,  however,  being  seriously 
injured. 

A  melancholy  interest  attaches  to  the  connection 
of  one  observer  with  the  station,  in  view  of  his  sad 
fate  a  few  years  after  his  service  here.  Sergeant  W.  S. 
Jewell,  who  was  in  charge  from  1878  to  1880,  was 
given  this  detail  at  his  own  request,  that  he  might 
fit  himself  for  service  in  the  Arctic  regions.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  ill-fated  Greely  expedition,  he  was  the 
first  of  that  unhappy  company  to  succumb,  perish- 
ing from  starvation  in  April,  1884. 

Naturally,  during  the  winters  that  the  Summit 
was  occupied,  ascents  were  numerous,  as  the  hardy 

326 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

climbers  knew  that  there  was  a  warm  welcome  and 
a  comfortable  shejter  at  the  end  of  their  climb.  The 
numerous  ones  made  during  the  first  winter  of  occu- 
pation have  been  already  mentioned.  Several  diffi- 
cult or  perilous  ones  are  recorded  by  Edward  L. 
Wilson  as  participated  in  by  him.  Mention  has 
already  been  made  of  his  ascent  with  B.  W.  Kilburn 
in  March,  1871.^  Photography  was  the  principal 
object  of  these  gentlemen,  who  together  made  five 
visits  to  the  Summit  in  winter. 

In  the  1 87 1  ascent,  the  travelers  followed  in  the 
main  the  course  of  the  railroad  track,  and  all  went 
well  until  long  after  the  tree-line  was  passed,  al- 
though they  had  found  walking  on  snowshoes,  with 
seventy-five  pounds  of  photographic  paraphernalia 
(the  "wet"  process  was  all  that  was  then  known) 
and  other  baggage  to  carry,  warm  work.  Soon  after 
they  had  passed  the  halfway  point  on  the  railway, 
they  entered  a  cloud  and  were  assailed  by  a  cold 
northeast  sleet-storm,  in  which  they  could  not  see  a 
yard  ahead.  Suddenly  the  wind  became  more  vio- 
lent and  erratic  so  that  they  could  not  stand  alone. 
Joined  arm  in  arm,  they  advanced  sidewise  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  up  the  steepest  part  of  the  climb 
in  the  darkness,  passing  Jacob's  Ladder,  for  which 
they  looked  as  a  landmark  to  guide  them,  without 
seeing  it.   They  floundered  on,  confused  and  bewil- 

1  Mr.  Kilburn  kept  a  camera  and  photographic  apparatus  at  the 
Summit  for  seven  years  from  1871  and  came  up  every  winter,  wit- 
nessing some  terrible  storms  and  having  some  severe  experiences  in 
taking  his  famous  winter  views.  He  once  saved  Sergeant  Hearne's 
life,  when  the  latter  was  overcome  at  Jacob's  Ladder,  by  carrying 
the  observer  bodily  up  the  remaining  one  and  a  half  miles  of  icy 
track. 

327 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

dered  by  the  storm,  for  some  time  as  best  they  could, 
and  at  length  suddenly  came  upon  the  engine-shed, 
where  they  were  made  welcome  by  Messrs.  Nelson 
and  Smith. ^ 

The  fifth  and  last  ascent  of  the  two  photographers 
was  made  March  2,  1886.  This  time  there  was  no 
heavy  baggage  to  carry,  as  the  "dry"  processes  of 
photography  had  been  invented.  They  were  met 
before  they  reached  the  tree-line  by  "  Medford  "  and 
two  members  of  the  Signal  Service,  to  whom  they 
had  telegraphed  their  start  from  the  Base.  Leaving 
their  snowshoes  at  the  tree-line,  they  made  their  way 
first  on  the  rock  and  crust,  which  were  so  discourag- 
ingly  wet  and  slippery  that  they  left  them  for  the 
cog  rail.  This  proving  too  dangerously  icy,  as  a  last 
resort  they  betook  themselves  to  the  cross- ties,  on 
which  there  were  a  few  inches  of  new  snow.  Over 
this  hard  road  they  succeeded  in  reaching  the  Sum- 
mit. At  times  it  required  desperate  effort  to  hold 
their  own  against  the  wind,  and  on  Jacob's  Ladder 
they  were  forced  to  resort  to  "all-fours,"  and  more 
than  once  to  lie  flat  and  hold  firmly  to  the  sleepers 
until  a  gust  had  spent  its  strength.  "Taken  alto- 
gether," Mr.  Wilson  declares,  "this  was  the  most 
difficult  ascent  we  made." 

A  most  perilous  ascent,  which  nearly  cost  the 
climber  his  life,  is  narrated  by  the  writer  just  quoted. 
It  was  performed  by  Sergeant  William  Line,  who 
served  on  Mount  Washington  three  years  (1874-77), 
and  occurred  on  November  23,  1875.  The  day  was 

^  This  ascent  and  others  are  pleasantly  described  by  Mr.  Wilson 
in  the  volume  Mountain  Climbing  (1897). 

328 


THE  SUMMITS  IN  WINTER 

unpromising,  and  against  his  better  judgment  he 
left  Fabyan  at  about  9  a.m.,  with  the  mail  for  the 
Summit.  All  went  well  as  far  as  the  foot  of  Jacob's 
Ladder,  which  point  was  reached  at  one  o'clock, 
after  two  hours  of  hard  work  from  the  Base.  There 
the  snow  was  several  feet  deep,  and  the  gusts  began 
to  increase  in  force  and  frequency,  so  that  he  could 
advance  only  by  a  few  steps  in  the  lulls,  being  com- 
pelled to  lie  flat  in  the  intervals  of  high  wind.  Once 
his  body  was  blown  up  against  the  cross-ties  of  the 
railroad  and  held  there  for  some  time.  At  length  he 
succeeded  in  approaching  the  Gulf  Station-House, 
which  it  seemed  for  a  time  impossible  to  reach,  as  he 
could  not  stand  in  such  a  wind,  or  even  breathe 
facing  it.  Finally,  by  lying  down  and,  feet  first, 
backing  up  the  drift  near  the  building,  and  by  falling 
down  the  other  side  of  the  drift,  he  gained  the  house. 
After  several  futile  attempts  to  continue  his  ascent, 
he  returned  to  the  building  to  pass  the  night.  Here 
he  found  to  his  consternation  that  he  had  lost  his 
match-box,  and  that  his  life  depended  upon  his  being 
able  to  light  a  single  damp  match  which  he  had  in 
his  vest-pocket.  Luckily  he  was  successful  in  ignit- 
ing it.  In  the  morning  he  resumed  his  way  and  was 
making  good  progress,  when,  near  the  Summit,  he 
met  his  exceedingly  anxious  companion,  Mr.  King, 
coming  down  the  Mountain  in  search  of  him.  Hardly 
had  they  arrived  when  they  heard  voices,  and  soon 
Mr.  Kilburn  and  two  other  men  appeared  coming 
up  out  of  the  fog.  The  photographer  had  been  in- 
formed by  telegraph  about  midnight  that  the  ob- 
server was  lost  and  had  immediately  started  from 

329 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Littleton  to  go  in  search  of  him,  requesting  the  others 
to  join  him. 

Professor  Huntington,  who  made  many  ascents, 
some  of  them  dangerous,  during  his  winter  stay  on 
the  Mountain  in  1870-71,  made  what  is  recorded  as 
the  most  perilous  one,  late  in  November,  1873,  when 
the  thermometer  stood  at  17°  below  zero  and  the 
velocity  of  the  wind  was  seventy-two  miles  an  hour. 

Place  aux  dames/  The  first  women  to  climb  Mount 
Washington  in  winter  were  —  worthy  offspring  of  a 
noble  sire !  —  two  daughters  of  the  pioneer,  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford.  Mrs.  Orville  E.  Freeman,  of  Lan- 
caster, New  Hampshire,  and  Mrs.  Charles  Durgin, 
of  Andover,  New  Hampshire,  in  company  with  their 
brother  William  H.  Crawford,  of  Jefferson,  and  their 
nephew  Ethan  Allen  Crawford,  of  Jefferson  High- 
lands, accomplished  the  feat  on  a  mild  afternoon  in 
January,  1874,  walking  up  the  railroad  track  and 
spending  the  night  in  the  Signal  Station.  At  the  out- 
set they  did  not  anticipate  going  to  the  top,  but, 
finding  progress  not  so  very  difficult,  they  kept  on. 
They  made  the  entire  distance  in  three  hours.  Mrs. 
Freeman  described  the  trip  as  "glorious  fun"  and 
expressed  the  hope  that  all  her  women  friends  might 
enjoy  the  pleasure  of  making  it  in  winter.  The  win- 
ter ascent  was  not  again,  however,  made  by  a  woman 
until  Dr.  Mary  R.  Lakeman,  of  Salem,  Massachu- 
setts, achieved  it  with  a  party  of  Appalachians,  who 
walked  up  from  the  Glen  House  by  the  carriage  road 
in  February,  1902. 


XV 

LATER  HOTELS 

I  HAVE  already  set  down,  in  a  previous  chapter 
devoted  to  the  subject,  such  facts  as  I  have  been 
able  to  gather  regarding  the  early  hotels  of  the  White 
Mountain  region,  bringing  the  chronicles  of  hotel- 
keeping  there  down  to  1870,  or  thereabouts.  In  the 
seventies  the  building  of  the  extensions  of  the  already 
existing  railroads  and  of  an  entirely  new  main  line 
to  the  Mountains,  the  Portland  and  Ogdensburg, 
greatly  stimulated  travel  thither,  thousands  of  sum- 
mer visitors  coming  where  hundreds  came  before. 
As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  increase  of  travel, 
an  era  of  hotel  construction  and  enlargement  began, 
to  continue  for  a  period  of  thirty  years,  or  until  the 
advent  of  the  motor  age,  with  its  changed  conditions 
of  summer  recreation,  put  an  end  to  the  old  order  of 
things  in  summer  resorts  and  especially  to  hotel 
development  along  the  old  lines.  During  this  period 
of  thirty  years  or  so  from  1870  on,  there  came  into 
existence,  then,  many  hotels  and  boarding-houses. 
These,  by  reason  of  the  attractiveness  of  their  loca- 
tion, the  excellence  of  their  cuisines,  and  the  general 
high  degree  of  comfort  and  convenience  provided, 
have  done  much  to  draw  visitors  to  the  region  and 
to  increase  and  to  spread  far  and  wide  that  high 
repute  of  White  Mountain  hospitality  which  the 
older  hotels  had  created  by  the  excellence  of  their 
accommodations. 

331 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Of  these  places  of  entertainment  some  are  still 
taking  care  of  patrons  as  satisfactorily  as  ever  with- 
out increased  room,  but  many  more  have  been  either 
largely  rebuilt  or  succeeded  by  more  capacious  and 
elegant  houses  on  the  same  sites,  while  yet  others 
have  succumbed  to  the  fire  fiend  and  have  never 
been  rebuilt.  Space  can  be  taken  to  narrate  the 
history  of  only  a  few  of  the  more  important  of  these 
establishments. 

Systematic  attempts  at  the  development  of  Beth- 
lehem as  a  summer  resort  began  toward  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War.  In  1859,  the  Sinclair,  now  the  leading 
hotel  of  Bethlehem  village,  was  a  small  two-story 
and  a  half  gable-roof  house  —  a  "well-kept  stage 
tavern  with  a  few  rooms  for  boarders."  As  business 
increased,  additions  had  to  be  made  from  time  to 
time  and  the  older  portions  of  the  structure  had  to 
be  modernized.  Thus,  the  huge  and  commodious 
hostelry  of  to-day  has  developed  by  successive  in- 
crements and  alterations. 

In  1863,  the  Honorable  Henry  Howard,  of  Provi- 
dence, Rhode  Island,  who  was  afterward  governor 
of  that  State,  was  visiting  the  region  with  a  party, 
and,  the  coach  in  which  he  was  coming  down  Mount 
Agassiz  being  overturned  and  most  of  its  occupants 
severely  injured,  several  weeks  were  necessarily 
spent  in  Bethlehem  until  the  injured  ones  recovered 
sufficiently  to  go  to  their  homes.  During  this  stay 
Governor  Howard  spied  out  the  land  and  was  greatly 
impressed  with  the  healthfulness  and  attractiveness 
of  the  village's  location.  Becoming  convinced  that 
Bethlehem  had  great  possibilities  as  a  summer  re- 

332 


LATER  HOTELS 

sort,  he  made  extensive  purchases  of  land  there,  and 
showed  his  faith  in  the  opinions  he  had  formed  as 
to  the  future  of  the  place  by  selling  building-lots  on 
credit  and  by  lending  money  to  those  who  were  dis- 
posed to  go  into  the  summer-hotel  business. 

When  it  was  discovered  that,  in  addition  to  its 
unusual  general  healthfulness,  Bethlehem  afforded 
speedy  relief  to  visitors  who  were  afflicted  with  hay- 
fever,  a  new  element  was  added,  for  many  people,  to 
the  charms  of  the  place.  The  adoption  of  Bethlehem 
as  the  headquarters  of  the  American  Hay- Fever  Asso- 
ciation has  made  the  fame  of  the  village  nation-wide. 

Since  the  time  of  Governor  Howard's  activity  in 
promoting  the  development  of  Bethlehem,  houses 
for  the  care  of  summer  boarders,  who  have  become 
the  town's  chief,  and  indeed  almost  its  only,  source 
of  revenue,  have  multiplied  until  they  are  counted 
by  the  score.  The  people  of  the  town  were,  it  is  said, 
somewhat  slow  to  appreciate  their  opportunity,  but 
when,  at  length,  the  destiny  of  the  place  became 
evident  to  them,  they  were  very  willing  to  hasten  its 
development,  and  provision  was  made  for  a  water 
supply,  sewer  system,  and  other  adjuncts  necessary 
to  make  the  village  an  attractive  place  of  residence. 
The  spirit  of  enterprise  has  ever  since  characterized 
the  town  and  no  steps  have  been  left  untaken  to 
attract  summer  visitors.  Bethlehem's  frequenters 
number  annually  m^ny  thousands.  In  August  and 
September,  in  the  height  of  the  hay-fever  season, 
the  village  is  the  place  of  sojourn  of  many  victims  of 
this  distressing  malady,  who  return  year  after  year, 
thus  constituting  a  permanent  clientele  for  the  hotels 

333 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

and  boarding-houses,  and  there  are  also  staying  in 
the  village  many  other  people,  who  enjoy  the  won- 
derful air,  the  coolness,  the  fine  views,  and  the  pleas- 
ant life  of  this  highest  of  New  Hampshire  villages. 

Another  man  whose  name  has  become  indissolu- 
bly  connected  with  Bethlehem  was  Isaac  S.  Cruft,  a 
Boston  merchant,  who  came  to  the  village  in  1871. 
His  business  sagacity  made  him  realize  the  sound- 
ness of  Governor  Howard's  belief  as  to  the  possibili- 
ties there  and  led  him  to  acquire  a  large  tract  of  land 
for  summer-resort  purposes.  This  property,  known 
as  the  "Maplewood  Farm,"  is  situated  about  a  mile 
east  of  the  center  of  Bethlehem  at  the  point  on  the 
highway  to  Fabyan  where  the  Whitefield  road  joins 
it.  The  comfortable  farmhouse  then  standing  on 
this  sightly  location  was  remodeled  and  opened  as 
a  hotel.  The  new  resort  immediately  sprang  into 
favor.  In  1876,  Mr.  Cruft  erected  on  the  site  an 
elegant  and  spacious  hotel,  the  celebrated  Maple- 
wood.  Its  magnificent  distant  view  of  the  Presiden- 
tial Range  and  the  excellence  of  its  appointments 
soon  caused  the  hotel  to  grow  into  high  favor,  neces- 
sitating the  building,  in  1878,  of  a  large  addition. 
Maplewood,  which  has  its  own  railroad  station  and 
post-office,  a  group  of  cottages,  a  large  and  attrac- 
tive casino  and  spacious  grounds,  and  which  pro- 
vides every  comfort  and  luxury  that  can  be  thought 
of  and  facilities  for  all  kinds  of  indoor  and  outdoor 
diversion,  has  long  been  a  fashionable  resort  and  has 
ever  ranked  among  the  foremost  of  the  great  Moun- 
tain hotels. 

The  Twin  Mountain  House,  located  in  the  Am- 
334 


LATER  HOTELS 

monoosuc  Valley  five  miles  west  of  Fabyan,  with 
stations  on  the  Boston  and  Maine  and  Maine  Cen- 
tral Railroads,  was  built  in  1869-70.  It  was  at  first 
a  small  house,  —  only  a  cottage,  —  but  by  additions 
and  changes  it  soon  became  a  capacious  hostelry, 
now  one  of  the  landmarks  of  the  Mountains.  Its 
first  proprietor  was  Asa  Barron,  whose  son,  the  late 
Colonel  Oscar  G.  Barron,  was  brought  here,  a  boy 
of  nineteen,  in  1869.  For  two  years,  Oscar  Barron 
was  associated  with  C.  H.  Merrill,  who  was  the  man- 
ager of  the  hotel;  but  in  1872,  Mr.  Merrill  went  to 
the  Crawford  House,  where  he  remained  until  the 
close  of  the  season  of  1907,  and  young  Barron  be- 
came the  manager.  During  the  next  six  years  the 
Twin  Mountain  House  developed,  under  the  land- 
lordship  of  Colonel  Barron  and  his  father,  until  it 
became  famous,  its  cuisine  and  its  social  life  being 
"justly  celebrated."  It  was  also  highly  reputed  as  a 
hay-fever  refuge.  These  were  the  days  of  its  glory. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  returned  year  after  year. 
President  Grant  was  a  visitor,  and  many  distin- 
guished persons  of  the  literary  and  social  world  en- 
joyed the  hospitality  of  the  Barrons.  The  prestige 
then  acquired  still  lingers  about  the  old  house.  In 
1878,  Asa  Barron  leased  the  Fabyan  House,  and 
four  years  later  the  noted  hotel  firm  of  Barron, 
Merrill,  and  Barron  was  formed,  which  association 
has  been  continued  ever  since.  The  Twin  Mountain 
House  has  remained  under  the  proprietorship  of  the 
company  of  this  name,  which  also  conducts  the 
Fabyan  House,  the  Crawford  House,  and  the  hotel 
on  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington. 

335 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mention  has  just  been  made  of  the  Fabyan  House. 
As  the  building  of  that  famous  hotel  in  the  Ammo- 
noosuc  Valley  follows  in  time  that  of  the  Twin 
Mountain  House,  the  narration  of  its  origin  and 
subsequent  history  may  well  come  here.  After  the 
burning  of  Horace  Fabyan's  Mount  Washington 
House,  in  the  spring  of  1853,  there  arose  a  legal  con- 
troversy over  the  ownership  of  the  land  constituting 
the  original  hotel  site  of  the  Mountains,  which  pre- 
vented the  immediate  rebuilding  of  the  hotel.  Dur- 
ing the  autumn  of  1858,  the  stables,  which  the  pre- 
vious fire  had  spared,  were  struck  by  lightning  and 
destroyed.  The  legal  difficulties  must  have  dragged 
along,  for  the  traveler  through  the  Ammonoosuc 
Valley,  between  Crawford's  and  Bethlehem  or 
Franconia  in  the  fifties  and  sixties,  saw  only  ruins 
at  the  Giant's  Grave  and  found  the  White  Mountain 
House,  about  a  mile  farther  on,  the  only  house  of 
entertainment  in  this  vicinity. 

At  length,  a  stock  company,  called  the  Mount 
Washington  Hotel  Company,  and  composed  of 
Messrs.  Hartshorn,  Walcott,  and  Sylvester  Marsh, 
was  chartered,  and,  in  1872,  work  was  begun  on  a 
new  hotel  at  the  Giant's  Grave,  which  mound  was 
at  that  time  removed  to  obtain  a  level  site.^  This, 
the  present  hotel,  called  the  "Fabyan  House"  in 
honor  of  the  proprietor  of  the  previous  hotel  here, 
was  opened  to  guests  in  1873.  After  the  opening  of 
the  White  Mountains  Railroad  to  this  point  in  1874 
and  after  the  completion  of  the  Portland  and  Ogdens- 
burg  from  the  east  as  far  as  here  in  the  following 
*  Sweetser  characterized  this  as  "a  needless  act  of  vandalism." 

336 


LATER  HOTELS 

year,  this  location,  as  the  place  of  changing  cars  in 
the  journey  through  the  Mountains  and  as  the 
starting-point  for  the  trip  up  Mount  Washington, 
soon  became  the  busiest  of  White  Mountain  railway 
centers,  which  it  has  remained  to  this  day. 

The  first  landlord  of  the  Fabyan  House  was  John 
Lindsey,  one  of  the  old-time  stage-drivers  of  this 
region.  He,  with  his  partner,  Mr.  French,  remained 
in  charge  until  1878,  when,  as  has  been  already 
noted,  the  hotel  was  leased  by  Asa  Barron,  of  the 
Twin  Mountain  House,  who  with  his  son,  Oscar, 
left  the  latter  that  year  and  came  here.  Then  began 
Colonel  Oscar  G.  Barron's  famous  connection  with 
the  Fabyan  House,  which  lasted  for  thirty-five  years. 
To  his  genial  hospitality  and  thorough  knowledge  of 
hotel-keeping  the  Fabyan  House  chiefly  owes  the 
popularity  which  has  characterized  it  through  all 
these  years. 

Colonel  Barron's  warm-hearted  personality  en- 
deared him  to  all  who  in  any  way  came  in  contact 
with  him.  His  services  to  the  town  of  Carroll  and 
to  the  White  Mountains  in  general,  as  by  his  efforts 
to  further  and  upbuild  the  summer-resort  business 
and  by  his  advocacy  of  the  bill  for  making  the 
Crawford  Notch  a  State  reservation,  made  his  death 
in  January,  1913,  a  heavy  blow  to  the  White  Moun- 
tain community. 

Another  well-known  and  popular  hostelry  in  this 
locality  is  the  Mount  Pleasant  House,  a  half-mile 
east  of  the  Fabyan  House,  which,  as  erected  in  1876 
by  John  T.  G.  Leavitt,  was  a  very  different-looking 
structure  from  the  one  the  traveler  sees  to-day.   In 

337 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

1 88 1,  Joseph  Stickney  became  interested  in  it  and 
rebuilt  it.  Abbott  L.  Fabyan,  son  of  Horace,  man- 
aged it  for  ten  years  for  Barron,  Merrill,  and  Barron, 
to  whom  it  was  leased.  In  1895,  it  was  transformed 
into  virtually  a  new  establishment,  the  present  large 
and  comfortable  hotel,  which  achieved  a  high  repu- 
tation under  the  skillful  management  of  the  firm  of 
Anderson  and  Price. 

The  story  of  the  Glen  House,  the  celebrated  hotel 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Presidential  Range  in  the 
valley  of  the  Peabody  River,  has  been  brought  down 
elsewhere  to  the  death  by  drowning,  in  1869,  of  its 
first  landlord,  Mr.  Thompson.  Two  years  later,  the 
hotel  passed  to  the  control  of  Charles  R.  Milliken 
and  his  brother,  Weston  F.  Milliken.  These  enter- 
prising business  men  believed  that  increased  patron- 
age would  follow  efforts  to  provide  accommodations 
superior  to  those  travelers  had  been  putting  up  with, 
and  in  their  hands  the  house  took  a  new  start  and 
developed  into  a  first-class  hotel.  This  type  of  man- 
agement, combined  with  the  advantageous  location 
of  the  Glen  House,  far  from  the  noise  and  bustle  of 
railways  and  villages,  and  commanding  one  of  the 
grandest  views  in  the  Mountains,  soon  put  it  in  the 
front  rank  of  popular  favor.  An  era  of  prosperity 
set  in,  during  which  addition  after  addition  was 
made  to  the  old  structure  until  it  became  an  aggre- 
gation of  buildings.  This  increase  of  business  and 
favor  continued  unbroken  until  the  autumn  of  1884 
arrived.  The  last  guests  had  gone  and  the  house  was 
being  closed  on  October  i  for  the  season,  when  it 
was  suddenly  discovered  to  be  on  fire.    The  fire, 

338 


THE    FIRST   GLEN    HOUSE 


V      ^t 


Vtv,"*  ?3V"^rft  - 


J   -  1 


^'M^.;^4'^sag|g,s;saaiifei''j,m<jU,iB 


;;^.:^v:*v:'Z? 


THE   SECOND   GLEN    HOUSE,  1885-1893 


LATER  HOTELS 

fanned  by  a  strong  northeaster,  spread  with  great 
rapidity.  Soon  all  was  a  mass  of  flames,  and  in  two 
hours  what  had  constituted  a  good-sized  village  in 
itself  was  but  a  heap  of  ashes. 

The  destruction  of  this  hotel,  in  which  so  many 
thousands  had  been  entertained,  was  a  heavy  blow, 
not  only  to  the  proprietors,  but  to  the  traveling 
public.  Without  a  hotel  the  region  was  at  once 
thrown  back  into  its  primitive  solitude,  and,  more- 
over, an  important  link  in  the  chain  of  Mountain 
tours  was  broken.   It  was  a  public  misfortune. 

Although  the  pecuniary  loss  the  complete  destruc- 
tion of  the  Glen  House  involved  was  a  serious  one, 
its  proprietors  were  not  disheartened,  but  immedi- 
ately took  steps  toward  the  building  of  a  new  hotel 
on  the  same  site.  The  old  building  was,  as  has  been 
indicated,  a  growth,  and  was  in  no  sense  a  modern 
structure.  It  was  decided  to  erect  in  its  place  a 
homogeneous  building,  attractive  in  its  architecture 
and  characterized  by  simple  elegance  and  solid  com- 
fort in  its  appointments.  The  architect  chosen, 
F.  H.  Fassett,  planned  a  house  in  the  English  cot- 
tage style.  It  was  nearly  three  hundred  feet  long, 
was  three  stories  in  height  above  the  basement,  and 
was  provided  with  a  veranda  of  about  four  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  in  length.  Within,  both  the  public 
rooms  and  the  private  rooms  were  pleasing  in  their 
appearance  and  commodious,  while  their  furniture 
and  fittings  were  in  good  taste  and  often  luxurious. 

The  design  was  so  far  carried  into  effect  that  a 
new  hotel  was  opened  to  the  public  for  the  season  of 
1885.  It  was,  however,  not  fully  consummated  until 

339 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

the  season  of  1887,  when  the  huge  and  attractive 
structure,  with  its  accommodations  for  five  hundred 
guests,  stood  complete,  as  if  risen,  phoenixlike,  from 
the  ashes  of  the  old.  The  new  Glen  House  immedi- 
ately sprang  into  high  favor  with  the  Mountain 
sojourners  of  the  well-to-do  variety  and  was  soon 
enjoying  a  large  patronage.  But,  alas!  the  years  of 
its  existence  were  to  be  few.  It  would  almost  seem 
as  if  there  were  a  curse  upon  this  site  similar  to  that 
which  tradition  had  attached  to  the  Giant's  Grave 
location  on  the  other  side  of  the  Range,  for  on  Sun- 
day evening,  July  16,  1893,  this  magnificent  struc- 
ture caught  fire  from  some  unknown  cause  and  in  a 
few  hours  the  site  was  again  desolate.  This  disaster, 
by  which  a  property  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars  was  either  destroyed  or,  by  the  destruction 
of  the  means  of  accommodating  visitors,  rendered 
largely  valueless,  was  an  overwhelming  one  to  the 
proprietors  and  to  the  locality  itself.  The  Glen 
House  has  not  so  far  been  rebuilt.  The  stables  re- 
main, and  in  them  are  kept  the  horses  and  wagons 
for  the  ascent  of  Mount  Washington  by  the  carriage 
road.  The  business  of  carrying  passengers  up  and 
down  the  Mountain,  conducted  here,  has  kept  the 
Glen  from  being  abandoned.  Of  recent  years  the 
building  which  was  used  as  the  servants'  quarters 
of  the  hotel,  and  which  escaped  the  fire,  accommo- 
dates a  few  guests,  usually  those  of  the  pedestrian 
class  or  persons  of  similar  simple  tastes,  under  the 
name  of  the  Glen  House. 

The  new  house  of  1885-93  had  too  brief  an  exist- 
ence to  acquire  much  in  the  way  of  a  tradition,  but 

340 


LATER  HOTELS 

about  its  famous  predecessor  of  1852-84  gathered 
many  happy  memories.  Many  noted  persons  visited 
it  either  as  regular  guests  or  as  transients  who  had 
come  to  make  the  stage  trip  to  the  summit  of  Mount 
Washington.  One  famous  habitu6  of  the  old  house 
has  his  memory  perpetuated  in  a  roadside  spring 
not  far  away.  He,  "Josh  Billings,"  was  a  great  trout 
fisherman,  and  in  the  seventies  he  used  to  practice 
his  favorite  diversion  upon  the  streams  in  this  vicin- 
ity, even  penetrating,  in  his  quest  for  the  speckled 
beauties,  into  the  lower  sections  of  the  Great  Gulf. 
Those  who  visited  the  Glen  House  in  those  days 
often  saw  him,  "deep-eyed  and  hirsutely  aureoled, 
and  talking  much  of  trout  in  language  which,  even 
in  its  spoken  form,  reveals  how  preciously  distinct, 
subtle,  and  blessed  its  orthography  must  be." 

The  history  of  the  hotels  in  the  Franconia  Notch 
has  been  already  brought  down  to  the  year  1872, 
when  the  present  Flume  House  was  built.  The  next 
event  in  this  locality,  the  building  of  the  Profile  and 
Franconia  Notch  Railroad,  has  also  been  recorded. 
The  scenic  beauties  and  natural  curiosities  of  the 
district  have  always  attracted  many  visitors,  and 
hotels  of  the  highest  rank  have  been  maintained 
there  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  permanent  and 
transient  guests.  The  great  hotel,  the  Profile  House, 
at  the  northern  entrance  of  the  Notch,  particularly, 
is  one  of  the  famous  summer-resort  hotels  of  America. 
The  hotel  and  the  group  of  cottages,  with  the  rail- 
road station,  the  stables,  etc.,  constitute  a  little 
world  in  themselves.  The  fine  appointments,  the 
cuisine,  the  opportunities  for  amusements  of  various 

341 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

kinds,  the  social  life,  and  other  features  of  the  Pro- 
file House  have  always  secured  for  it  a  liberal  patron- 
age of  refined  and  cultured  people,  many  of  whom 
have  made  the  settlement  their  summer  home  for 
many  years.  In  1898,  a  stock  company  was  formed 
to  hold  the  Franconia  Notch  property.  Business 
having  increased  and  the  famous  old  hotel  having 
come  to  be  regarded  as  inadequate,  the  erection  of 
a  new  hotel  was  decided  upon  by  the  owners.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  the  autumn  of  1905,  the  old  house  was 
torn  down,  and  on  July  i,  1906,  the  New  Profile 
House,  a  caravanserai  of  luxurious  appointments, 
was  opened  to  the  public. 

So  numerous  were  the  houses  of  entertainment 
that  date  from  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing 
that  it  would  take  considerable  space  merely  to 
name  them.  I  shall  tarry  but  to  give  the  principal 
facts  concerning  a  few  others  at  important  places 
before  closing  this  record  of  the  Mountain  hotels 
with  an  account  of  the  building  of  the  great  Mount 
Washington  Hotel  at  Bretton  Woods. 

The  Sunset  Hill  House  at  Sugar  Hill  was  built  in 
1879  and  the  Deer  Park  at  North  Woodstock  was 
opened  in  1887.  The  now  celebrated  Waumbek 
Hotel  at  Jefferson  was  the  result  of  a  remodeling 
completed  in  1889,  the  plain  but  substantial  house 
built  thirty  years  before  being  thereby  transformed 
into  the  commodious  and  elegant  structure  of  to-day. 
A  popular  hotel  of  to-day  which  represents  an  inter- 
esting development  is  the  Mountain  View  House 
at  Whitefield,  which,  beginning  from  a  farmhouse, 
where  a  passing  traveler  obtained  shelter  in  1866, 

342 


LATER  HOTELS 

has  become  by  successive  additions,  the  last  opened 
in  191 2,  a  large  and  attractive  house.  In  Septem- 
ber, 1898,  the  Willey  Hotel,  which  Horace  Fabyan 
had  built  in  the  Notch  many  years  before,  was, 
with  its  companion  building,  the  historic  old  Willey 
House,  burned  to  the  ground. 

It  remains  now  only  to  relate  the  circumstances 
of  the  most  considerable  hotel-building  enterprise 
ever  undertaken  in  the  White  Mountains,  that  of  the 
erection  of  the  Mount  Washington.  This  particular 
undertaking  differed  in  conception  from  most  similar 
projects  of  recent  years  in  that  the  hotel  was  erected 
on  a  site  that  had  never  before  been  occupied.  It  is 
said  that  the  original  builders  of  the  Mount  Pleasant 
saw  the  advantages  of  the  location  and  entertained 
a  vague  idea  of  sometime  building  there.  Nothing 
at  any  rate  came  of  the  plan,  however,  until  the 
late  Joseph  Stickney,  of  New  York,  a  capitalist  of 
New  Hampshire  birth,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
become  owner  of  the  Mount  Pleasant  House  early 
in  the  eighties,  entered  upon  the  development  of 
the  project  and  carried  it  through  to  a  successful 
conclusion.  As  the  result  of  this  gentleman's  enter- 
prise and  command  of  large  means,  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  summer  hotels  in  the  world  stands 
about  a  mile  from  Fabyan  upon  a  little  plateau 
seventy  or  eighty  feet  above  the  Ammonoosuc 
River,  with  its  eastern  outlook  toward  Mount  Wash- 
ington and  the  Presidential  Range.  The  architect 
was  Charles  Ailing  Gifford,  of  New  York,  and  the 
style  of  the  architecture  is  of  the  Spanish  Renais- 
sance.  The  general  shape  is  that  of  a  capital  letter 

343 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Y,  and  prominent  features  are  two  octagonal  towers, 
five  stories  in  height,  between  which  is  the  main 
portion  of  the  structure.  The  foundation  is  of 
granite,  the  blocks  where  exposed  being  left  in  a 
rough  finish,  and  the  superstructure  is  of  wood, 
covered  with  light-colored  cement,  laid  upon  a  steel 
network,  the  whole  building  being  as  nearly  fireproof 
as  possible.  The  kitchen  is  in  a  detached  building. 
The  interior  of  the  hotel  is  fitted  with  every  conven- 
ience, comfort,  and  luxury  that  experience  can  sug- 
gest and  the  liberal  expenditure  of  money  provide. 
Active  work  was  begun  on  the  hotel  in  June,  1901, 
and  construction  was  carried  rapidly  forward,  so 
that  the  hotel  was  opened  to  the  public  July  28, 
1902.  The  company  owning  this  hotel  and  the 
Mount  Pleasant  also  owns  an  extensive  tract  of 
land,  much  of  it  virgin  forest,  around  the  hotels. 
Roads,  bridle  paths,  and  trails  have  been  built  in 
this  area,  the  immediate  grounds  of  the  Mount 
Washington  have  been  elaborately  laid  out,  and 
every  facility  for  outdoor  games  and  amusements 
has  been  provided.  In  the  summer  the  Mount 
Washington  and  its  appurtenances  constitute  a  city 
in  themselves,  so  far  as  completeness  of  equipment 
and  of  provision  for  every  possible  demand  of  guests 
is  concerned. 


XVI 

EARLY   TRAILS    AND    PATH-BUILDERS  —  THE 

APPALACHIAN  MOUNTAIN  CLUB  AND  ITS 

WORK  IN  THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

The  building  of  the  first  paths  to  the  summit  of 
Mount  Washington  by  the  Crawfords,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  bridle  path  thither  from  the  Glen  House, 
has  been  already  mentioned.  Probably  the  first  path 
made  on  the  Northern  Peaks  was  the  Stillings  Path, 
which,  starting  from  the  Randolph- Jefferson  High- 
way in  Jefferson  Highlands,  extended  for  nine 
miles  to  a  point  about  a  mile  from  the  Castellated 
Ridge,  whence  Mount  Washington  could  be  reached 
over  the  slopes  of  Jefferson  and  Clay.  It  was  this 
path  that  was  used  in  carrying  up  the  lumber  for 
the  Summit  House  of  Rosebrook  and  Perkins,  and 
so  it  is  known  to  have  been  in  existence  as  early  as 
1852.  In  i860  or  1861,  a  partial  trail  over  the  peaks 
to  Mount  Washington,  some  sections  of  which  are 
still  in  existence,  was  made  by  Gordon  the  guide. 
It  was  in  1875  that  the  first  path  up  Mount  Adams, 
which  is  the  oldest  of  those  now  maintained  on  the 
Northern  Peaks,  was  constructed  by  William  G. 
Nowell,  a  very  active  trail-builder  in  later  years,  and 
Charles  E.  Lowe,  a  guide  long  favorably  known  to 
visitors  to  that  region,  and  from  1895  to  his  death 
in  1907  proprietor  of  the  Mount  Crescent  House 
at  Randolph.    Until  1880,  Lowe's  Path,  as  it  was 

345 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

named,  was  maintained  as  a  toll-path.  It  is  now  an 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club  path.  In  1876,  Pro- 
fessor J.  Rayner  Edmands  had  Mr.  Lowe  cut  a 
branch  path  through  King's  Ravine,  and  in  the 
same  year  Mr.  No  well  built  the  first  camp  on  the 
Northern  Peaks. 

An  early  path  up  Mount  Washington  from  the 
south  was  completed  in  1845  by  Nathaniel  T.  P. 
Davis,  proprietor  of  the  Mount  Crawford  House. 
About  sixteen  miles  long,  it  leaves  the  Saco  meadows 
near  the  present  Bemis  Station,  passes  up  between 
Mounts  Crawford  and  Resolution,  ascends  the 
Giant's  Stairs  on  the  southwest  side,  runs  along  the 
Montalban  Ridge  to  Boott  Spur,  and  finally  crosses 
Bigelow's  Lawn  to  the  Crawford  Path.  Much  of 
the  course  of  the  Davis  Path  being  not  particularly 
interesting  and  its  length  being  so  great,  it  did  not 
become  popular,  and  so  it  was  abandoned  in  1853 
and  was  for  many  years  actually  obliterated  for  all 
but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  way.  Professor 
Huntington,  however,  ascended  by  it  in  1871,  and 
W.  H.  Pickering  and  W.  S.  Fenollosa  followed  its 
route  in  the  main  or  where  possible,  in  an  excursion 
to  Mount  Washington  via  Mounts  Crawford,  Reso- 
lution, Davis,  and  Isolation  in  1880.  In  August 
and  September,  1910,  under  the  direction  of  Warren 
W.  Hart,  Councillor  of  Improvements  of  the  Appa- 
lachian Mountain  Club  in  that  year,  this  ancient 
path  was  reopened. 

A  path-builder  whose  name  became  early  con- 
nected with  the  Glen  side  of  the  Mountain,  and  is 
permanently  associated  with  Tuckerman's  Ravine, 

346 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

is  the  late  Major  Curtis  B.  Raymond,  of  Boston,  for 
many  years  an  explorer  and  ardent  lover  of  the 
Mountains.  Major  Raymond  first  visited  the  Ra- 
vine in  1854.  In  1879,  he  opened  the  well-known 
Raymond  Path,  which  leaves  the  carriage  road  two 
miles  up  the  Mountain  and  ascends  by  easy  grades 
to  the  snow  arch.  This  was  in  the  main  an  old  route, 
that  of  the  bridle  path  which  was  cut  by  Landlord 
Thompson,  of  the  Glen  House,  but  which  had  in 
course  of  time  become  more  or  less  obstructed  by 
falling  trees.  From  the  Raymond  Path  a  side  path 
diverges  to  the  celebrated  Raymond  Cataract,  while 
the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  Crystal  Cascade 
Path,  also  opened  in  1879,  joins  it  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  or  so  below  Hermit  Lake.  In  1891,  Major 
Raymond  improved  his  path,  and,  after  his  death  in 
February,  1893,  his  widow  maintained  the  path  for 
some  years.  It  was  reopened  in  1904  and  is  now  an 
A.M.C.  path.  These  two  paths  with  the  trail  from 
the  snow  arch  to  the  Summit,  laid  out  by  F.  H. 
Burt  and  others  in  1881  and  now  maintained  by  the 
Club,  constitute  a  continuous  route  through  Tucker- 
man's  Ravine  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington. 
Benjamin  F.  Osgood,  for  many  years  head  porter 
of  the  Glen  House  and  noted  as  a  guide,  has  been 
already  mentioned  in  the  latter  and  other  connec- 
tions. He  was  also  something  of  a  path-builder,  for 
in  1878  he  opened  a  path  to  Mount  Madison  from 
a  point  near  the  Glen  House,  and  in  1881  built  a 
path  from  Osgood's  Falls  on  the  Mount  Madison 
path  to  Spaulding's  Lake,  or  just  beyond  it,  at  the 
head  of  the  Great  Gulf.  The  Osgood  Path  fell  into 

347 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

disuse  after  the  burning  of  the  Glen  House,  but  was 
reopened  in  1904.  In  1907,  the  Appalachian  Moun- 
tain Club  relocated  its  lower  end  and  adopted  it  as 
an  official  path. 

The  founding  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club 
in  1876  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  the 
exploration,  study,  and  pleasure  use  of  the  White 
Mountains,  for,  although  the  Club  has  "taken  all 
outdoors  for  its  field,"  it  is  to  this  region  that  the 
major  part  of  its  attention  has  been  directed.  In- 
deed, the  White  Mountains  may  be  regarded  as 
peculiarly  an  A.M. C.  preserve. 

Three  years  before  this  important  event,  what  is 
believed  to  be  the  first  organization  of  the  sort  ever 
attempted  in  America  was  formed  in  the  White 
Mountain  Club  of  Portland,  Maine.  Its  object  was, 
however,  amusement  rather  than  exploration  and 
scientific  study.  It  had  been  by  members  of  this 
then  future  club  that  Carrigain  was  early  visited 
(only  Professor  Guyot  and  party  had  previously 
been  there).  Professor  George  L.  Vose  and  Mr. 
G.  F.  Morse,  with  J.  O.  Cobb  for  a  guide,  accom- 
plishing this  difficult  climb  on  September  20-21, 
1869. 

On  August  29-31,  1873,  a  second  ascent  of  this 
mountain  was  made,  this  time  by  a  party  of  six 
men  from  Portland  or  its  vicinity,  with  two  local 
men  hired  as  guides.  This  is  known  in  the  White 
Mountain  Club  annals  as  "the  famous  Carrigain 
party,"  and,  indeed,  the  expedition  was  a  memorable 
one  because  of  an  action  taken  during  it.  The  first 
day  was  spent  —  because  the  guides  knew  nothing 

348 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

of  the  country  —  in  futile  wandering  over  the  worst 
kind  of  obstructions.  The  men  were  without  water, 
and  so,  when,  in  the  late  afternoon,  they  came 
again  upon  Carrigain  Brook,  which  they  had  crossed 
early  in  the  day,  they  camped  for  the  night.  There 
and  then  the  White  Mountain  Club  was  founded. 
The  next  day  the  ascent  of  the  mountain  was 
achieved  by  the  new  club. 

The  beginnings  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain 
Club  were  on  this  wise.  The  project  of  forming  an 
organization  "  for  the  advancement  of  the  interests 
of  those  who  visit  the  mountains  of  New  England 
and  adjacent  regions,  whether  for  the  purpose  of 
scientific  research  or  summer  recreation,"  had  been 
for  some  time  a  subject  of  discussion  among  scien- 
tists and  others  residing  in  or  near  Boston  who  were 
mountain-lovers.  The  suggestion  of  such  a  club 
must  date  back  many  years.  At  length  definite 
action  looking  toward  its  realization  was  taken.  The 
initiative  came  from  Professor  E.  C.  Pickering,  who, 
on  January  i,  1876,  issued  fifty  cards  of  invitation 
to  a  meeting,  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology  in  Boston,  "of  those  interested  in  moun- 
tain exploration."  Professor  Charles  E.  Fay  was 
chairman  of  this  first  meeting,  held  on  January  8. 
After  three  preliminary  meetings,  the  first  regular 
meeting  was  held  on  February  9,  when  a  permanent 
organization  was  formed,  the  original  number  of 
members  being  thirty-nine.  Professor  Pickering,  to 
whom  unquestionably  belongs  the  honor  of  found- 
ing the  Club,  was  naturally  chosen  as  its  first  presi- 
dent. 

349 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

As  the  interest  in  the  Club  grew  and  the  scope 
of  its  activities  became  enlarged  and  more  defined, 
it  was  soon  evident  that  it  would  be  advisable  for 
it  to  have  a  legal  standing,  and  so  early  in  1878  a 
corporation  was  formed  to  enable  the  Club  to  hold 
and  defend  a  legal  title  to  any  property  of  which  it 
might  become  possessed.  The  number  of  incor- 
porators was  one  hundred  and  fifty,  the  same  name 
was  retained,  and  the  objects  of  the  Club  were  set 
forth  as  "to  explore  the  mountains  of  New  England 
and  the  adjacent  regions,  both  for  scientific  and 
artistic  purposes;  and,  in  general,  to  cultivate  an 
interest  in  geographical  studies."  The  first  meeting 
of  the  corporation  was  held  on  March  13,  1878;  at 
the  eighth  corporate  meeting,  on  January  8,  1879, 
a  resolution  was  passed  dissolving  the  "voluntary, 
unincorporated  association  heretofore  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club." 

When  one  comes  to  pass  in  review  the  activities 
of  the  Club  in  the  White  Mountains  during  the 
years  since  its  founding  and  to  record  its  services  in 
the  exploration  of  the  region  and  in  the  promotion  of 
the  pleasure  of  visitors,  and  especially  of  those  who 
are  fond  of  mountaineering,  one  must  declare  at  the 
outset  that  time  would  fail  him  to  tell  of  a  tithe  of 
the  Club's  doings  and  benefactions.  In  the  way  of 
commendation  of  the  organization's  work,  it  may 
be  said  that  all  who  love  to  follow  a  trail  up  and 
over  the  Mountains,  and  to  live  in  the  open,  owe 
to  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  an  ever-increas- 
ing debt  for  its  contributions  to  the  opportunities 
and   facilities  for  their  enjoyment  of  the  White 

350 


THE   MOUNT   PLEASANT   TRAIL 


A.  M.  C.   HUTS   ON    MOUNT    MADISON 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

Mountains,  and  will,  one  and  all,  wish  to  utter  a 
fervent  "Amen"  to  Dr.  Hale's  simple  benediction, 
"Blessings  on  the  Appalachian  Club." 

One  will  have  to  be  content  also  with  little  more 
than  a  mere  enumeration  of  some  of  the  more  im- 
portant of  the  Club's  explorations,  path-building 
and  other  constructive  undertakings,  and  other  ac- 
tivities. 

It  is  the  custom  of  the  Club  to  hold  one  general 
field  meeting  in  the  summer  of  each  year.  Most  of 
these  gatherings  have  been  held  in  the  White  Moun- 
tains, a  goodly  number  of  them,  the  first  in  1886,  at 
the  Summit  House  on  Mount  Washington.  Other 
places  of  meeting  have  been  the  Crawford  House, 
the  Profile  House,  North  Conway,^  Jefferson,  Jack- 
son, Bethlehem,  and  North  Woodstock. 

A  winter  excursion  is  now  a  feature  of  the  Club 
year.  The  earliest  of  these  was  made  in  1882,  in 
the  first  days  of  February.  Jackson  was  the  head- 
quarters on  this  occasion,  when  a  ride  through  the 
Notch  to  Fabyan  was  taken. 

The  first  important  building  work  ever  under- 
taken by  the  Club  is  the  provision  for  shelter  on  the 
Northern  Peaks,  in  the  form  of  a  stone  cabin  or  hut 
at  the  Madison  Spring,  which  is  located  on  the 
south  flank  of  Mount  Madison  in  the  depression 
between  that  peak  and  Mount  Adams.  The  advis- 
ability and  feasibility  of  having  a  place  of  refuge  at 
this  point  having  been  demonstrated,  construction 
was  begun  in  August,  1888,  the  masons  going  into 

^  The  first  field  meeting,  that  of  1876,  was  held  there,  ascents  being 
made  of  Kearsarge  and  Willard- 

351 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

camp  on  the  21st  and  finishing  the  walls  in  about 
three  weeks.  Then  ensued  a  prolonged  spell  of  ex- 
traordinarily stormy  weather,  and  it  was  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  that  the  roof  was  got  on  and  the 
hut  made  tight  for  the  winter.  As  originally  con- 
structed, the  building's  inside  dimensions  were  six- 
teen and  one  half  by  twelve  and  one  quarter  feet, 
and  it  was  seven  feet  high  at  the  eaves  and  eleven 
at  the  ridge  of  the  roof.  The  walls  are  about  two  feet 
thick  and  are  constructed  of  flat  stones  carefully 
fitted  and  pointed  inside  and  outside  with  Portland 
cement.  The  plans  were  furnished  by  J.  F.  Eaton 
and  the  original  cost  was  about  eight  hundred  dol- 
lars. The  work  of  construction  was  completed  in 
1889.  In  1906,  the  hut  was  enlarged  by  the  building 
of  a  compartment  for  women.  Still  further  provision 
for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  pedestrians  was 
made  by  the  erection  of  a  second  building  in  191 1, 
which  was  opened  for  use  in  191 2.  This  "hut"  con- 
tains two  rooms,  one  a  living-room  for  the  caretaker 
and  the  other  a  kitchen  and  dining-room  in  which 
to  prepare  and  serve  meals  to  the  guests. 

Continuing  its  policy  of  promoting  the  interests 
of  those  vacationists  who  prefer  to  tramp,  and  es- 
pecially of  improving  existing  facilities  for  their 
convenience  and  protection  while  on  an  extended 
trip,  the  Club,  in  1914,  replaced  with  a  stone  hut 
its  log  cabin  in  the  Carter  Notch,  which  building 
had  served  as  a  shelter  in  that  region  for  ten  years, 
but  which  had  proved  unsatisfactory  in  location  and 
in  several  other  ways.  For  this  new  camp  in  this 
deep  wild  cleft  in  the  Carter-Moriah  Range,  which 

352 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

lies  east  of  the  Presidential  Range,  a  better  situation 
than  that  of  the  old  cabin  was  chosen.  The  latter 
was  close  under  the  western  slope  of  Carter  Dome, 
but  the  new  structure  is  in  an  open  place  beside  the 
southern  one  of  the  two  beautiful  tarns  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Notch  and  commands  a  pleasant  outlook 
down  the  Wildcat  Valley  toward  Jackson.  This,  the 
third  of  the  Club's  stone  huts,  has  accommodations 
for  thirty-six  persons,  with  separate  heated  rooms 
for  men  and  women. 

The  most  recent  building  enterprise  of  the  Club 
is  the  Lakes  of  the  Clouds  Hut,  which  was  con- 
structed in  the  early  summer  of  1915  and  opened  to 
the  use  of  the  mountain-climbing  fraternity  in  Au- 
gust. It  is  located  on  a  little  terrace  on  the  Mount 
Monroe  side  of  the  larger  of  the  two  lakelets  from 
which  it  gets  its  name,  faces  the  south,  from  which 
direction  the  bridle  path  approaches  it,  and,  al- 
though not  situated  directly  on  the  path,  is  only  a 
few  rods  from  it.  In  planning  the  kind  of  structure 
to  be  erected  at  this  situation,  which,  unlike  those 
of  the  other  A.M.C.  huts,  is  in  a  place  from  which 
it  is  a  long,  and  in  violent  weather  a  dangerous,  way 
to  the  protecting  timber  of  lower  levels,  it  was 
thought  advisable  to  depart  somewhat  from  the 
type  of  hut  previously  built  and  to  construct  one 
in  which  the  tramper  —  who,  if  caught  at  this  point 
in  a  storm,  must  perforce  wait  it  out  there  —  would 
be  able  to  pass  a  more  comfortable  time  than  is 
possible  in  the  older  kind  of  hut,  with  its  low  walls 
and  few  and  narrow  windows.  So  the  new  hut  was 
provided  with  somewhat  higher  stone  walls,  —  it  is 

353 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

not,  like  the  first  Madison  Hut,  built  into  the  side 
of  the  mountain,  —  and,  as  a  special  constructive 
feature,  with  several  large  plate-glass  windows, 
consisting  not,  however,  of  single  panes,  but  of 
large  lights  set  in  steel  frames.  In  the  lighter  and 
otherwise  more  attractive  interior  thus  made  pos- 
sible, a  person  imprisoned  during  a  driving  tempest 
would  have  a  rather  pleasant  experience,  being  able 
not  only  to  stay  there  in  comparative  comfort,  but 
also  to  watch  the  antics  of  the  storm;  while  in 
clear  weather,  if  it  happened  to  be  too  cool  or  too 
windy  to  remain  outside  with  pleasure,  a  sojourner 
at  this  camp  would  find  it  far  from  disagreeable 
to  sit  within  and  view  the  prospect  down  the  Am- 
monoosuc  ravine  and  away  to  the  distance.  Accom- 
modations, not  luxurious  but  comfortable,  are 
provided  for  twelve  women  and  twenty-four  men. 

A  new  convenience  for  mountain-climbers,  intro- 
duced in  191 5,  was  the  establishment  of  wireless 
telegraph  service  at  the  Madison,  Lakes  of  the 
Clouds,  and  Carter  Notch  Huts,  radio  outfits  being 
installed  at  each,  so  that  thereby  intending  visitors 
might  be  enabled  to  reserve  accommodations  from 
hut  to  hut  or  from  the  world  below  by  telephoning 
to  the  Madison  Hut. 

Other  shelters  of  a  less  permanent  character  have 
been  built  by  the  Club  in  various  parts  of  the  Moun- 
tains, as,  near  Hermit  Lake  in  Tuckerman's  Ravine, 
on  the  Crawford  Path,^  and  on  Mount  Liberty  in 

^  The  shelter  on  this  trail  was  built  in  1901,  as  has  been  stated  in 
connection  with  the  recital  of  the  story  of  the  perishing  of  Curtis  and 
Ormsbee.   In  1915,  on  the  erection  of  the  Lakes  of  the  Clouds  Hut, 

354 


A.  M.  C.  HUT  ON  MOUNT  MONROE 


MOUNT  MONROE  HUT  INTERIOR 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

the  Franconia  Range ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  ambitions 
of  this  benevolent  organization  to  establish  a  chain 
of  huts  and  camps  throughout  the  Mountains  as  one 
of  its  agencies  for  achieving  its  purpose  of  cultivat- 
ing the  tramping  habit  and  the  love  of  woods  and 
mountains. 

On  the  Northern  Peaks  are  a  number  of  privately 
built  camps,  such  as  the  Log  Cabin,  constructed  by 
William  G.  Nowell  in  1890,  and  the  Cascade  and 
Perch  Camps,  built  in  1892-93  by  the  late  Professor 
Edmands,  of  Harvard  Observatory,  a  member  of 
the  Appalachian  Club,  who  at  his  own  expense  con- 
structed also  many  miles  of  paths  on  the  Presiden- 
tial Range,  including  the  Gulfside  Trail,  the  Ran- 
dolph Path,  the  Israel  Ridge  Path,  the  Edmands 
Path  from  between  Mounts  Franklin  and  Pleasant 
down  the  side  of  the  latter,  and  the  Westside  Trail. 

These  paths  and  many  others  are  now  maintained 
by  the  Club.  Not  a  few  have  been  newly  constructed 
and  a  number  of  older  ones  have  been  reopened. 
The  work  of  path-making  was  almost  immediately 
taken  up  by  the  Club  after  its  organization  and  has 
since  been  a  very  important  feature  of  its  work.  In 
1876  and  afterward,  Lowe's  Path  up  Mount  Adams 
was  improved,  and  in  that  and  the  following  year, 
the  Jackson-Carter  Notch  Path,  another  Club  path, 
was  built  by  Jonathan  G.  Davis.  A  Club  path  to 
Tuckerman's  Ravine  from  the  Crystal  Cascade  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  opened  in  1879.  In  1878  and  1894, 
paths  were  opened  along  Snyder  Brook  on  the  side 

it  was  removed  to  a  point,  about  half  a  mile  farther  north,  where  the 
Boott  Spur  Trail  meets  the  Crawford  Path. 

355 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

of  Mount  Madison,  sections  of  which  paths  were 
incorporated  in  the  graded  Valley  Way  from  Appa- 
lachia  Station  to  the  Madison  Hut,  a  path  built  by 
Professor  Edmands  in  1895-97.  Iri  1882,  a  trail  was 
built  by  the  Club  over  the  Twin  Mountain  Range. 
The  Air  Line  Path  up  Durand  Ridge  to  Mount 
Adams  was  built  as  to  its  lower  part  by  Messrs.  W.  H. 
Peek,  E.  B.  Cook,  and  L.  M.  Watson,  in  1883-84, 
and  in  the  latter  year  a  trail  to  the  Castellated  Ridge 
on  Mount  Jefferson  was  made  under  the  direction  of 
William  G.  Nowell.  The  old  Fabyan  (originally 
Crawford)  Path  to  Mount  Pleasant  was  reopened 
by  the  Club  in  1886,  but,  being  little  used,  it  soon 
became  overgrown  again. ^  A  path  up  Mount  Gar- 
field^ in  the  Franconia  Range  was  opened  in  1897. 
The  Boott  Spur  Trail,  which  utilizes  a  mile  of  the  old 
Davis  Trail  before  it  joins  the  Crawford  Trail,  dates 
from  1900.  Six  years  later,  the  Glen  Boulder  Trail 
was  opened  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Washington. 

Club  paths  are  now  to  be  found  over  the  entire 
Mountain  region.  There  are,  for  instance,  trails  up 
Mount  Moosilauke  and  a  path  ascending  the  Fran- 
conia Range  from  the  south  through  the  Flume. 
The  Club  is  now  devoting  its  attention  to  the  per- 
fecting of  an  organic  system  of  main  through-route 
paths,  by  which  it  will  be  possible  to  traverse  nearly 
all  the  principal  ranges  and  valleys  from  end  to  end 
and  to  cross  from  one  valley  to  another. 

^  In  1900,  this  path  was  again  reopened,  this  time  by  Mr.  Anderson, 
of  the  Mount  Pleasant  House,  and  Professor  Edmands,  who  had  it 
cleared  and  improved.  A  new  road  was  made  then  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountain. 

*  So  named  in  1881,  at  the  suggestion  of  Frances  E.  Willard. 

356 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

Reservations  are  owned  by  the  Club  in  various 
parts  of  the  Mountains,  notably  at  North  Wood- 
stock, Appalachia,  Shelburne,  the  Glen  Ellis  Falls, 
and  the  Crystal  Cascade. 

Another  undertaking  of  the  Club  is  the  mainte- 
nance on  most  of  the  less-frequented  summits  of 
copper  cylinders  containing  paper  and  pencil,  for 
recording  ascents  and  the  names  of  the  climbers. 
This  was  a  systemization  of  a  matter  hitherto  left  to 
individual  initiative  and  only  sporadically  attended 
to.  As  it  may  be  of  some  interest  to  the  reader  to 
have  set  before  him  the  circumstances  connected 
with  the  previous  attempts  of  this  nature  alluded  to, 
a  brief  narration  of  them  may  therefore  be  pardon- 
ably interjected  here. 

Mention  was  made  in  the  early  pages  of  this 
chronicle  of  one  or  two  cases  in  which  visitors  to  the 
top  of  Mount  Washington  left  on  the  Summit  a 
record  of  their  achievement  in  mountaineering.^  In 
1824,  Ethan  Allen  Crawford  attempted  to  make 
provision  for  those  who  wished  to  leave  their  names, 
carrying  up  a  thin  piece  of  sheet  lead,  eight  or  ten 
feet  in  length  and  seven  inches  wide,  which  was  put 
round  a  roller  he  made  for  the  purpose.  He  also 
made  an  iron  pencil  for  use  on  the  lead,  by  which 
means  he  thought  visitors  could  much  more  quickly 
and  easily  register  their  names  "than  they  could 
carve  them  with  a  chisel  and  hammer  on  a  rock." 
The  party  of  vandals  from  Jackson,  already  spoken 
of  as  carrying  off  the  brass  plate  placed  on  the 

*  See  the  accounts  of  the  expeditions  of  Belknap's  party  (p.  31); 
of  Brazer  and  Dawson  (p.  84) ;  and  of  Dr.  Bigelow  (p.  37). 

357 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mountain  in  1818,  also  took  away  at  the  same  time 
(1825)  Mr.  Crawford's  sheet  of  lead,  which  is  said 
to  have  been  run  into  musket  balls. 

The  next  placing  of  a  register  on  a  White  Moun- 
tain summit  is  credited  to  the  famous  guide,  Benja- 
min F.  Osgood,  who  on  August  12,  1854,  placed  a 
roll,  probably  in  a  bottle,  on  Mount  Adams.  By 
1866,  it  contained  twelve  names,  it  is  said,  and  ten 
years  later  twenty.  Lastly,  L.  L.  Holden,  of  the 
Boston  Journal^  in  his  account,  in  "  Mount  Washing- 
ton in  Winter,"  of  the  excursion  of  Mr.  Nelson  and 
himself  to  Mount  Adams  on  the  6th  of  May,  1871, 
tells  of  their  inscribing  their  names  ''upon  an  old 
sardine  box  which  had  evidently  served  as  a  sort  of 
visitors'  register  for  nearly  a  dozen  years." 

The  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  took  up  this 
matter  of  providing  means  for  registration  of  ascents 
in  the  first  summer  of  its  existence,  William  G. 
Nowell  placing  a  Club  bottle  on  the  summit  of 
Mount  Adams  on  July  22,  1876,  as  the  roll  placed 
in  this  receptacle  records.  On  August  23  of  the  next 
year,  the  bottle  was  replaced  by  an  A.M. C.  cylinder. 
The  successive  rolls  on  Mount  Adams  are  in  good 
order  and  form  a  continuous,  or  nearly  continuous, 
record.  Their  history  is  marked,  however,  by  one 
noteworthy  occurrence,  for  in  June,  1894,  the  cylin- 
der was  struck  by  lightning  and  destroyed.  It  was 
promptly  replaced.  On  the  new  roll  of  that  year,  it 
is  recorded  that  a  small  party  suffered  to  some  extent 
from  the  shock  of  that  stroke.  The  year  1876  appears 
to  be  the  date  that  Mount  Madison  first  received  a 
register. 

358 


TRAILS  AND  PATH-BUILDERS 

The  last  of  the  Club's  activities  I  shall  mention  in 
this  fragmentary  and,  considering  the  merit  of  its 
achievements,  far  from  commensurate,  account  of 
them,  is  one  of  the  most  important.  This  is  its 
means  of  disseminating  among  its  members  and  to 
the  world  in  general  the  information,  scientific  and 
other,  acquired  by  explorations,  the  reports  of  the 
various  departments  of  the  Club  work,  and  the  like. 
The  Club's  journal,  Appalachia,  was  established 
immediately  after  the  Club's  founding  in  1876,  and 
the  first  number  appeared  in  June  of  that  year.  The 
idea  of  publishing  papers  by  members  of  the  Club 
in  an  official  periodical  was  conceived  by  the  ento- 
mologist, Samuel  H.  Scudder,  the  Club's  first  vice- 
president  and  second  president.  He  determined  the 
form  and  character  of  the  magazine,  gave  it  its 
euphonious  and  now  widely  known  name,  and  was 
its  first  editor.  As  a  large  part  of  the  contents  of  the 
journal  relates  to  the  White  Mountains,  the  volumes 
constitute  a  scientific  and  topographical  record  of 
them  of  inestimable  value. 


XVII 

THE  GREAT  FIRE  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON  — 
OTHER   RECENT  EVENTS  OF   INTEREST 

Aside  from  the  establishment  of  the  White  Moun- 
tain National  Forest,  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  next 
chapter,  the  most  notable  event  in  recent  White 
Mountain  history  is  an  occurrence  which  has  already 
been  several  times  mentioned  incidentally,  the  great 
fire  of  the  night  of  Thursday,  June  i8,  1908,  by 
which  the  active  portion  of  the  settlement  on  New 
England's  highest  point  was  in  a  few  hours  wiped 
out  and  the  Summit  thrown  back  to  the  primitive 
conditions  of  half  a  century  before.  This  most  dis- 
astrous conflagration  not  only  was  a  serious  set- 
back to  the  business  interests  concerned,  —  a  repa- 
rable injury, —  but,  by  its  removal  of  a  number  of 
ancient  landmarks  about  which  were  clustered  mem- 
ories and  associations  of  many  a  sort,  it  occasioned 
a  sentimental  loss  which  cannot  be  recovered.  For 
it  was  with  genuine  sorrow  that  the  news  of  the  fire 
came  to  thousands  throughout  this  country  and  in 
distant  lands,  and  particularly  was  the  destruction 
of  the  hotel  lamented  by  those  who  as  permanent 
summer  guests  had  enjoyed  the  hospitality  and 
shelter  of  the  Summit  House,  and  by  those  whose 
occupations  were  in  connection  with  the  enterprises 
conducted  on  the  Summit. 

Many  had  been  the  pleasant  gatherings  around 
the  office  stove  enjoyed  by  the  little  Summit  colony 

360 


FIRE  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

or  "family,"  as  they  called  themselves.  To  them, 
such  was  their  attachment  to  their  summer  home, 
the  passing  of  the  old  structure  was  like  the  loss 
if  a  dear  human  friend.  Wrote  Annie  Trumbull 
olosson,  a  regular  sojourner  at  the  Summit:  "I 
know  .  .  .  that  no  new  hostelry  .  .  .  will  ever  be  to 
us,  the  little  band  of  habitues,  of  annual  dwellers 
therein,  of  devoted  pilgrims  seeking  each  summer  a 
loved  shrine,  just  the  same  as  the  dear  old  Summit 
House.  Of  late  years  it  had  been  my  home,  my 
homiest  home.  .  .  .  Dear  old  house!  I  loved  every 
timber,  every  clapboard  of  it." 

As  a  spectacle  the  fire,  involving  so  many  build- 
ings situated  at  such  an  elevation,  and  occurring,  as 
it  did,  in  the  early  evening  of  a  clear  day,  was  natu- 
rally a  brilliant  and  far  viewable  one.  As  in  addition 
to  these  circumstances  the  fire  was  early  discovered 
and  the  news  of  it  soon  communicated  to  the  Moun- 
tain towns  and  villages,  many  inhabitants  of  the 
localities  from  which  Mount  Washington  is  visible 
were  enabled  to  witness  this  unforgettable  sight  and 
even  to  watch  the  conflagration's  progress. 

There  is  a  dramatic  element,  too,  in  the  time  of 
year  of  the  fire's  occurrence,  for  it  was  while  prepa- 
rations were  going  actively  forward  for  the  summer. 
For  several  days  previous  to  that  calamitous  Thurs- 
day, the  railway  men  had  been  employed  during  the 
day  in  putting  things  in  readiness.  The  section  of 
track  along  the  platform  had  just  been  recon- 
structed, the  following  Sunday  the  manager  and 
other  employees  of  the  hotel  were  due  to  arrive,  and 
the  opening  was  set  for  the  29th. 

361 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

On  the  fateful  day,  work  had  been  done  under  the 
direction  of  Superintendent  John  Home  in  making 
the  Summit  House  habitable  for  the  summer.  Be- 
tween 4.30  and  5  P.M.  the  employees'  train  left  for 
the  Base,  but  before  its  departure  a  party  of  young 
people  from  Berlin  arrived,  who  had  come  over  the 
Range  from  the  Madison  Hut  and  were  intending  to 
pass  the  night  in  the  stage  office.  Everything  was 
apparently  right  when  the  railway  employees  de- 
parted. 

It  had  been  a  beautiful  day,  and  there  was  a  bril- 
liant sunset.  After  the  sun  had  gone  down,  the  light 
still  lingered  on  the  peaks,  as  it  was  nearly  the  long- 
est day  of  the  year.  No  one  thought  of  any  disaster 
being  about  to  happen.  The  railway  men  had  set- 
tled themselves  for  a  quiet  evening's  rest;  others 
were  enjoying  the  beauty  of  the  evening  sky. 

It  was  at  the  Fabyan  House,  probably,  that  the 
first  discovery  of  the  fire  from  below  was  made.  A 
number  of  persons  connected  with  the  hotel,  or 
staying  there,  as  they  came  out  from  supper  caught 
sight  of  a  glow  on  the  Summit  House.  The  book- 
keeper of  the  hotel,  who  first  saw  it,  called  to  his 
friends  to  come  to  see  the  "pretty  sight."  One  of 
the  latter,  the  clerk,  soon  detected  a  suspicious 
flickering  of  the  light  and  so  hurriedly  summoned 
Colonel  Barron,  who  was  at  the  cottage,  by  tele- 
phone. At  first  the  latter  thought  it  was  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  sunlight,  but  soon  an  outburst  of  flame 
revealed  the  light's  true  nature,  and  an  alarm  was 
at  once  telephoned  to  the  Base,  where,  such  is  the 
station's  position  in  relation  to  the  Summit,  no  sign 

362 


FIRE  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

of  the  fire  had  been  discovered.  Immediately  a 
train  was  made  ready  and  a  force  of  employees  under 
Superintendent  Home  started  for  the  Summit.  Not 
until  the  Gulf  Tank  was  reached  were  the  flames 
visible  from  the  train.  As  the  top  was  approached, 
it  could  be  seen  that  the  hotel  was  already  a  mass  of 
flames  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  run  the 
train  to  the  platform.  So  a  stop  was  made  a  short 
distance  below  the  water  tank,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  way  was  made  on  foot.  When  the  men  arrived, 
the  roof  of  the  Summit  House  had  already  gone,  the 
fire  was  working  its  way  to  the  cottage,  the  stage 
office  had  fallen  in,  the  home  of  Among  the  Clouds 
was  ablaze,  and  the  train-shed  had  been  completely 
destroyed.  The  walk  leading  to  the  Tip-Top  House 
was  at  once  cut  away,  as  the  fire  had  begun  to  creep 
along  it,  but  this  precaution  proved  unnecessary,  as 
the  high  wind  kept  the  flames  from  traveling  farther 
in  that  direction.  Soon  the  Signal  Station  caught 
from  the  fire  in  the  ruins  of  the  train-shed,  and  the 
crest  of  the  peak  was  an  unbroken  line  of  flame. 
Nothing  could  be  done  to  stay  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion, and  the  powerless  men  could  only  watch  the 
progress  of  the  flames  and  think  of  what  it  meant. 
When  the  fire  was  seen  at  the  Glen  House,  the 
housekeeper  immediately  telephoned  to  the  office  at 
Gorham  of  the  E.  Libby  &  Sons  Company,  the  firm 
which  controls  the  carriage  road,  and  to  the  Halfway 
House.  The  superintendent  of  the  road,  George  C. 
Baird,  at  once  prepared  to  start  for  the  Summit  in  a 
wagon.  Before  he  left,  four  boys  of  the  Berlin  party 
arrived,  having  hurried  down  to  give  the  alarm. 

363 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Near  the  five-mile  post  the  remainder  of  the  party 
were  met,  one  of  whom,  a  teacher,  said  the  flames 
had  first  been  seen  breaking  from  a  window  in  the 
corner  of  the  hotel  nearest  the  printing-office.  Some 
of  them  had  entered  to  try  to  put  out  the  fire,  but  it 
had  gained  such  headway  that  they  were  unsuccess- 
ful. They  also  tried  to  telephone,  not  knowing  that 
the  telephone  had  been  disconnected.  Superintend- 
ent Baird  reached  the  Summit  in  time  to  see  the  fire 
at  its  height. 

Before  midnight  the  fire  had  burned  itself  out  and 
the  Crown  of  New  England  was  covered  with  a  deso- 
late heap  of  embers  and  ashes,  charred  timbers,  and 
ruined  metal  work,  the  Tip-Top  House  alone  of  all 
the  Summit  buildings  being  left  to  watch  over  this 
sad  scene  of  devastation. 

The  buildings  destroyed  have  been  already  named. 
Besides  the  Tip-Top  House,  the  flames  also  spared 
the  two  stables,  a  few  hundred  feet  below  the  Sum- 
mit. The  high  wind  was  the  means  of  saving  the 
upper  stable,  as  the  gusts  blew  off  the  blazing  pieces 
of  wood  which  fell  on  the  roof  of  that  building  before 
they  had  time  to  do  more  than  scorch  the  shingles. 

The  destruction  of  all  but  one  of  the  buildings 
made  a  great  alteration  in  the  sky-line  of  the  top  of 
Mount  Washington  as  seen  from  below,  restoring  it 
nearly  to  the  appearance  it  had  about  1855.  The 
tall  chimney  of  the  hotel,  however,  which  remained 
standing  for  some  time,  stood  out  like  a  monument 
and  was  a  striking  object  from  all  the  country  round. 

Plans  for  rebuilding  the  hotel  were  at  once  talked 
of,  and  it  was  at  first  thought  that  by  extraordinary 

364 


THE    FIRE   ON    MOUNT   WASHINGTON    AS    SKEN    FROM    CORHAM 


FIRE  ON  MOUNT  WASHINGTON 

efforts  a  new  hotel  might  be  ready  for  use  by  the 
first  of  August.  When,  however,  it  was  remembered 
that  it  took  two  years  to  build  the  destroyed  hotel 
and  two  hundred  and  fifty  trains  to  carry  up  the 
material,  and  that  on  account  of  the  exposed  position 
and  the  uncertain  weather  conditions  work  on  the 
mountain-top  was  both  difficult  and  dangerous,  it 
was  seen  that  reconstruction  would  have  to  proceed 
slowly. 

Meanwhile,  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  restore 
the  Tip-Top  House  to  its  original  use  as  a  hotel,  and, 
accordingly,  steps  were  at  once  taken  to  that  end. 
The  railway  ties  and  supporting  timbers,  which  had 
been  burned,  and  the  rails,  which  had  been  twisted 
out  of  shape,  were  replaced  by  almost  superhuman 
efforts  as  soon  as  the  29th  day  of  June,  so  that  the 
first  regular  passenger  train  made  its  trip  on  that 
day,  according  to  schedule.  The  repairs  on  the  Tip- 
Top  House  were  also  hastened  along.  The  old  parti- 
tions, floors,  and  sheathing  were  taken  out  and  re- 
placed by  new  material,  the  windows  were  again 
exposed  to  daylight,  and  the  observatory  room  at 
the  back  was  fitted  up  as  a  kitchen.  Soon  the  old 
house,  unused  as  a  hotel  for  an  interval  of  thirty-five 
years,  was,  under  the  conduct  of  the  staff  of  the 
Summit  House,  entertaining  visitors  in  the  plain  but 
cheerful  and  comfortable  manner  of  a  half-century 
before. 

And  such  were  the  conditions  of  hospitality  that 
obtained  on  Mount  Washington  for  seven  years 
after  the  fire ;  for,  although  plans  were  made  for  the 
early  erection  of  a  new  wooden  hotel  on  the  Summit, 

365 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

and,  on  the  27th  of  July,  1910,  the  cornerstone  was 
laid  and  work  begun  on  the  foundation  of  a  building 
on  the  Summit  House  site,  no  new  building  crowned 
Mount  Washington  until  the  summer  of  191 5. 

The  foundation  just  mentioned  was  completed, 
but  further  work  was  not  carried  on,  as  the  adoption 
of  more  elaborate  plans,  which  provided  for  the 
erection  of  a  massive  Summit  House  of  stone,  con- 
crete, steel,  and  glass,  whose  center  should  be  on 
the  very  apex  of  the  peak,  and  for  the  building  of 
a  scenic  electric  railway,  twenty  miles  long,  up 
Mount  Washington,  were  about  that  time  decided 
upon  by  the  railroads  interested.  But  the  depression 
in  business  in  New  England  and  the  failure  of  the 
project  for  combining  the  two  principal  railroads  of 
this  section  into  one  system  prevented  the  consum- 
mation of  the  plans,  and  the  undertaking,  which,  on 
any  such  scale  as  here  outlined,  would  seem  to  have 
been,  even  under  the  most  favorable  conditions,  a 
chimerical  one,  was  abandoned.  The  surveys,  how- 
ever, were  made  and  the  lines  of  the  proposed  build- 
ing staked  out.  The  survey,  also,  of  the  railroad, 
which  was  laid  out  to  circle  the  Mountain  several 
times  in  ascending  it,  was  begun  on  July  4,  191 1,  and 
was  completed  in  October,  1912.^ 

^  The  roadbed  was  to  be  constructed  of  rock  and  the  grade  was  to 
be  uniformly  six  per  cent.  The  cost  was  estimated  to  be  upwards  of 
a  million  dollars,  and  the  time  required  for  construction  about  two 
years.  The  route  starts  at  the  Base  Station,  goes  up  Mount  Jefferson 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  Castellated  Ridge,  crosses  the  west  slopes  of 
Jefferson  and  Clay,  and  winds  around  the  cone  of  Mount  Washington 
two  and  a  half  times,  passing  close  to  the  head  wall  of  Tuckerman's 
Ravine,  Boott  Spur,  and  the  Lakes  of  the  Clouds.  The  necessary  per- 
mission for  building  the  road  and  appurtenances  was  granted  to  the 

366 


OTHER  EVENTS  OF  INTEREST 

The  year  191 5  was  rendered  a  memorable  year  in 
the  annals  of  Mount  Washington  by  two  events, 
the  construction  and  opening  of  a  new  Summit  hotel 
and  the  occurrence  of  another  fire,  by  which  an 
ancient  landmark  was  for  the  most  part  destroyed. 

After  the  abandonment  of  the  project,  just  out- 
lined, of  building  a  scenic  railway  up  the  Mountain 
and  a  very  costly  hotel  on  the  Summit,  nothing  was 
done  for  a  year  or  so  about  constructing  a  new 
house  there.  But  the  idea  of  having  some  kind  of 
shelter  for  visitors  more  commodious  and  comfort- 
able than  was  furnished  by  the  old  Tip-Top  House 
was  not  given  up  by  the  persons  most  concerned  in 
the  matter,  the  officials  of  the  Concord  and  Mont- 
real Railroad  Company,  which  controls  the  Mount 
Washington  Railway.  At  length  it  was  decided  to 
build  a  modest  structure,  using  the  accumulated 
profits  of  the  little  road  to  pay  for  it,  and  plans 
for  a  new  building  on  this  basis  were  completed 
in  the  autumn  of  19 14. 

As  most  of  the  people  who  come  to  the  Summit 
remain  but  a  few  hours,  it  was  thought  advisable  in 
designing  the  interior  to  adapt  it  to  serve  principally 
as  a  station  and  restaurant,  but  the  provision  of 
comfortable  accommodations  for  those  visitors  who 
desire  to  spend  a  night  in  order  to  witness  the  im- 
pressive sunset  and  sunrise,  or  who  wish  to  remain 
for  a  longer  time,  was  by  no  means  disregarded. 

Last  summer  saw  the  materialization  of  these 

Concord  and  Montreal  Railroad  by  the  New  Hampshire  Board  of 
Public  Service  Commissioners  in  July,  1912.  One  result  of  the  survey 
is  the  most  accurate  map  ever  made  of  Washington,  Clay,  and 
Jefferson. 

367 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

plans,  and  Mount  Washington  is  now  again  crowned 
with  a  Summit  House,  and  one  equal  in  appoint- 
ments and  in  comfort  to  any  mountain-top  hotel  in 
the  world.  The  new  house,  which  is  one  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  feet  long,  thirty-eight  feet  wide,  and 
one  and  one-half  stories  in  height,  is  constructed  of 
wood,  has  its  outside  walls  shingled,  and  rests  upon 
the  foundation  already  mentioned  as  having  been 
completed  some  years  ago  upon  the  site  of  its  pred- 
ecessor. The  building  was  framed  at  Lisbon  during 
the  winter  and  the  frame  was  hauled  to  the  Base 
in  the  early  spring.  Work  was  commenced  on  the 
Summit  on  May  lo,  about  twenty  men,  who  boarded 
in  the  Tip-Top  House,  being  employed.  Although 
the  workmen  had  to  contend  in  May  with  snow, 
frost,  terrific  winds,  clouds,  and  rain,  which  rendered 
it  impossible  to  work  at  all  on  some  days,  and  with 
more  or  less  bad  weather  later,  good  progress  was 
made  and  the  hotel  was  completed  in  time  to  be 
opened  about  a  month  before  the  close  of  the 
season. 

To  avoid  having  to  resort  to  the  usual  practice  of 
anchoring  the  building  to  the  Mountain  with  stout 
chains  in  order  to  hold  it  on  its  foundation,  the  sills 
of  this  substantial  structure  are  sunk  in  the  solid 
concrete  and  then  secured  with  heavy  iron  bolts, 
each  post  is  fastened  to  the  sills  with  wrought-iron 
straps,  and  the  second  half-story  is  similarly  bound 
to  the  first-floor  plates. 

The  main  floor  is  given  up  mostly  to  the  office, 
restaurant,  and  other  public  rooms,  while  the  guest- 
rooms and  employees'  rooms  are  on  the  floor  above. 

368 


OTHER  EVENTS  OF  INTEREST 

The  hotel  is  heated  with  steam,  lighted  with  elec- 
tricity, and  supplied  with  water  from  the  Lakes  of 
the  Clouds,  which  ts  pumped  from  the  Base  into 
a  large  tank  located  on  the  highest  point  of  the 
Summit. 

The  opening  of  the  new  house  took  place  on 
August  21,  in  the  presence  of  prominent  railroad 
officials,  various  members  of  the  Appalachian  Moun- 
tain Club,  many  residents  of  the  Mountain  towns, 
and  others.  Among  the  special  features  of  this  cele- 
bration, which  was  such  an  event  as  Mount  Wash- 
ington had  never  seen  before,  was  a  flag-raising,  a 
dinner,  an  address  on  "The  Old  Times  and  the 
New,"  by  Rev.  Dr.  Harry  P.  Nichols,  to  whom  was 
given  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  register,  and 
an  illumination  by  means  of  rockets  of  many  colors 
and  red  lights,  for  which  latter  railroad  fusees  were 
used.  This  display,  which  began  at  9  p.m.  and  lasted 
for  half  an  hour,  was  given  a  spectacular  finish  by 
the  descent  of  the  railroad  in  three  minutes  by  the 
veteran  roadmaster  Patrick  Camden  on  a  slide- 
board,  carrying  gleaming  red  lights.  He  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  train  similarly  illuminated,  and  the 
final  note  was  struck  by  the  firing  of  a  dynamite 
salute  at  the  Glen  House.  Unfortunately,  clouds 
prevented  the  illumination  of  the  Summit  being 
seen  at  distant  points,  and  the  success  of  the  idea  of 
lighting  up  various  Mountain  peaks  with  bonfires 
in  honor  of  the  event. 

The  New  Summit  House  had  been  opened  but  a 
week,  when  Mount  Washington  was  the  scene  of 
another  spectacular  event,  the  burning  of  the  famous 

369 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

old  Tip-Top  House,  which  very  nearly  involved  its 
sister  building  in  its  own  fate.  Providentially,  the 
wind  during  the  fire  was  from  the  northeast  and  so 
carried  the  flames  directly  away  from  the  new  build- 
ing, which  otherwise  would  not  have  been  spared. 

The  blaze  was  discovered  at  seven  o'clock  on 
Sunday  morning,  August  29,  and  in  an  hour's  time 
the  roof  and  other  woodwork  were  entirely  con- 
sumed, and  only  the  stone  walls,  which  did  not 
crumble  at  all,  were  left  standing.  The  fire,  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  caused  by  a  defective 
chimney,  was  fed  by  quantities  of  paint  and  oil 
stored  in  the  building,  and  spread  so  rapidly  that 
the  occupants,  a  cook  and  four  carpenters  employed 
on  the  Summit  House,  were  not  able  to  save  many 
of  their  belongings.  The  only  object  connected 
with  the  building  that  was  saved  was  the  old 
weather-beaten  sign  over  the  door,  which  was  res- 
cued from  the  burning  structure  by  a  grandson  of 
John  H.  Spaulding,  one  of  the  builders  and  early 
landlords  of  the  ancient  hotel. 

The  fire  was  visible  for  miles  around,  and  ap- 
peared so  large  that  when  first  seen  at  the  various 
resorts  among  the  Mountains,  many  feared  that 
the  new  house  was  burning.  The  news  soon  spread 
that  it  was  the  old  Tip-Top  House  that  was  on  fire, 
and  so  thousands  of  people  witnessed  from  afar  the 
spectacular  passing  of  one  of  the  most  famous  land- 
marks in  New  England.  The  destruction  of  the  old 
house  so  soon  after  its  mission  was  fulfilled,  of  afford- 
ing a  shelter  to  visitors  during  a  period  when  it  was 
so  much  needed,  added  the  last  touch  of  pathos  to 

370 


OTHER  EVENTS  OF  INTEREST 

the  history  of  this  venerable  monument  of  early 
enterprise.  But  the  Tip-Top  House  is  not  to  remain 
a  ruin  or  to  disappear  from  the  landscape,  for  it  is 
the  announced  intention  of  the  railway  company  to 
restore  it  so  far  as  possible  to  its  former  appearance 
by  rebuilding  the  wooden  roof  on  the  old  walls. 

The  chronicle  of  events  relating  to  Mount  Wash- 
ington would  be  incomplete  without  some  mention 
of  the  famous  "Climbs  to  the  Clouds"  of  a  few 
years  since.  The  rapid  progress  in  the  development 
of  the  automobile  about  the  beginning  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  and  the  successful  construction  of 
powerful  steam  and  gasoline  vehicles  stimulated 
manufacturers  and  owners  to  test  the  hill-climbing 
capabilities  of  the  new  mechanical  means  of  trans- 
portation. Naturally  the  attention  of  enthusiastic 
motorists  was  drawn  to  the  Mount  Washington 
Carriage  Road  as  furnishing  the  most  difificult  piece 
of  hill-climbing  in  the  East  and  thus  the  finest  pos- 
sible test  of  the  quality  of  a  machine  in  this  respect, 
and  also  the  opportunity  for  making  records  in  a 
new  and  exciting  form  of  sport. 

Permission  having  been  obtained  to  make  use  of 
the  road  in  this  way,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  F.  O.  Stanley, 
of  Newton,  Massachusetts,  made  on  August  31, 1899, 
the  first  ascent  by  automobile,  the  machine  being 
a  steam  one.  The  first  officially  timed  ascent  of  the 
Mountain  by  automobile  was  made  on  August  25, 
1903,  when  the  trip  took  one  hour  and  forty-six 
minutes.  The  following  year,  on  July  11  and  12,  the 
first  automobile  climbing  contest  was  held.  Harry 
S.  Harkness   made   a  record   of    24  minutes,  37f 

371 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

seconds,  and  F.  E.  Stanley  one  of  28  minutes,  19I 
seconds. 

These  records  were  surpassed  in  the  second 
"Climb  to  the  Clouds,"  which  took  place  on  July 
17  and  18,  1905.  In  this  contest  the  best  time  was 
made  by  W.  M.  Hilliard,  20  minutes,  58 1  seconds. 
Bert  Holland  in  a  steam  car  made  the  ascent  in  22 
minutes,  I7|  seconds.^  The  climb  has  been  made 
on  a  motor  cycle  in  20  minutes,  59^  seconds,  Stanley 
T.  Kellogg  achieving  the  feat. 

A  distinguished  visitor  to  the  summit  of  Mount 
Washington  in  1907  was  Ambassador  James  Bryce, 
who,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Bryce,  Rev.  Dr.  Harry 
P.  Nichols,  and  a  few  others,  walked  up  the  Craw- 
ford Bridle  Path  late  in  the  season.  Mr.  Bryce  (as 
he  was  then),  who  is  an  enthusiastic  mountaineer 
and  a  former  president  of  the  English  Alpine  Club, 
enjoyed  greatly  the  walks  and  climbs  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Intervale,  where  the  summer  home  of 
the  British  Embassy  was  established  that  year.  The 
unfavorable  weather  he  was  so  unfortunate  as  to 
experience  on  the  Summit  did  not  spoil  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  visit  for  the  genial  British  gentleman, 
whose  delightful  personality  is  most  pleasantly  re- 
membered by  all  who  were  privileged  to  meet  him 
at  that  time. 

Much  interest  has  been  taken  in  late  years  in 
Lost  River,  a  small  stream  in  the  Kinsman  Notch. 
About  seven  miles  west  of  North  Woodstock,  this 

^  A  related  automobile  feat  may  be  noted  here.  This  is  the  record 
climb  of  Tug-of-War  Hill  (so-called),  the  steep  ascent  from  the  south 
to  the  Gate  of  the  Notch,  which  was  achieved  in  July,  1906,  in  the 
time  of  2  minutes  and  48  seconds. 


LOST   RIVER 


OTHER  EVENTS  OF  INTEREST 

mountain  brook  passes  for  a  distance  of  about  half 
a  mile  through  a  remarkable  series  of  glacial  caverns, 
which  is  the  third  great  curiosity  in  the  Franconia 
Mountain  region,  the  Profile  and  the  Flume  being 
the  other  two.  In  these  dark  and  gloomy  caves, 
which  are  from  forty  to  seventy-five  feet  deep,  the 
water  of  this  mountain  brook  disappears  from  sight 
and  at  times  from  sound.  This  unique  natural 
wonder,  which  far  surpasses  the  Flume  in  its  sur- 
prises and  its  massive  rock  structure,  was  discovered 
about  1855  by  R.  C.  Jackman,  of  North  Woodstock. 
About  1875,  when  he  returned  to  live  in  North 
Woodstock  after  an  absence  of  some  fifteen  years, 
he  cut  a  footpath  to  the  caves,  and  for  a  number  of 
years  he  acted  as  a  guide  to  this  and  other  scenic 
attractions  of  the  region.  Fortunately,  in  1912,  the 
Society  for  the  Protection  of  New  Hampshire 
Forests  acquired  a  forest  reservation  of  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-eight  acres  surrounding  and  includ- 
ing the  caves,  the  owners  generously  offering  to 
give  the  land  if  the  Society  would  buy  the  standing 
timber  on  the  tract.  A  legacy  and  gifts  enabled  the 
Society  to  accept  the  offer,  the  sum  required  being 
about  seven  thousand  dollars.  Further  gifts  have 
made  it  possible  to  provide  bridges,  ladders,  and 
trails  to  render  the  caverns  accessible,  and  to  build 
a  comfortable  shelter  for  the  use  of  visitors. 

Two  important  highways  built  in  the  early  years 
of  the  present  century  should  receive  at  least  a 
brief  mention  because  of  interesting  circumstances 
connected  with  them.  One  is  the  John  Anderson 
Memorial  Road,  named  in  honor  of  the  senior  mem- 

373 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ber  of  the  noted  former  hotel  firm  of  Anderson  and 
Price,  of  Bretton  Woods.  Mr.  Anderson,  who  was 
the  son  of  General  Samuel  J.  Anderson,  of  Portland 
and  Ogdensburg  Railway  fame,  did  much  for  the 
White  Mountains. 

The  road  came  into  existence  in  this  way.  Desir- 
ing to  find  a  way  from  Bretton  Woods  to  the  Fran- 
conia  Notch  which  would  be  shorter  than  the  exist- 
ing road  via  Bethlehem  and  Franconia  Village,  and 
which  would  avoid  the  long  climbs  on  that  route, 
Mr.  Anderson,  with  a  party  from  Bretton  Woods,  in 
the  autumn  of  1902,  explored  the  region  lying  be- 
tween that  locality  and  the  Franconia  Notch.  The 
route  for  a  road  was  surveyed  by  R.  T.  Gile  in 
November  of  that  year,  and  a  final  location  was 
made  by  him  in  the  summer  of  the  next  year.  In 
the  autumn  of  1903,  a  bridle  path  was  constructed 
under  the  supervision  of  the  State  Engineer  and 
opened.  In  July,  1905,  the  State  began  the  work 
of  developing  the  bridle  path  into  a  highway,  which 
was  constructed  that  summer  and  autumn.  After 
Mr.  Anderson's  death,  which  occurred  at  Ormond, 
Florida,  in  February,  191 1,  his  name  was  fittingly 
attached  to  this  new  State  Road,  which  runs  from 
near  Twin  Mountain  to  the  Profile  Golf  Links. 

The  other  highway,  the  Jefferson  Notch  Road,  be- 
sides being  one  of  convenience,  is  because  of  its 
location  one  of  the  grandest  drives  in  the  State. 
Rising,  as  it  does,  to  an  elevation  of  three  thousand 
and  eleven  feet,  it  commands  magnificent  views. 
When  the  construction  of  this  road  was  agitated, 
the  New  Hampshire  Legislature  appropriated  six 

374 


OTHER  EVENTS  OF  INTEREST 

thousand  dollars  for  the  purpose,  on  condition  that 
the  additional  expense  should  be  defrayed  by  pri- 
vate subscription.  Toward  the  needed  amount 
several  hotel  companies,  the  Boston  and  Maine 
Railroad  Company,  and  the  citizens  of  Jefferson 
Highlands  contributed  forty-five  hundred  dollars. 

The  southern  division,  to  which  the  State  High- 
way Commissioners  have  given  the  name  Mount 
Clinton  Road,  as  much  of  its  course  lies  along  the 
slope  of  that  mountain,  was  built  by  Contractor 
Thomas  Trudeau,  of  Pierce  Bridge,  and  was  opened 
November  8,  1901.  The  Commissioners,  Messrs. 
John  Anderson,  C.  H.  Merrill,  and  E.  A.  Crawford 
(the  third  of  the  name),  were,  however,  unable  to 
find  contractors  willing  to  undertake  the  task  of 
constructing  the  northern  or  Jefferson  division.  Mr. 
Crawford  then  came  to  the  rescue  and  personally 
constructed  the  road.  In  carrying  the  project 
through  to  a  successful  conclusion,  he  had  to  meet 
many  difficulties,  which  included  bad  weather,  con- 
struction through  forest  and  rock  and  over  the  crest 
of  a  ridge,  the  holding  together  of  a  force  of  sturdy 
mountain  men,  and  the  pledging  of  his  own  credit 
for  the  funds  required  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work. 

The  first  trip  over  the  road  was  made  on  August 
9,  1902,  when  Mr.  Crawford  drove  a  three-seated 
buckboard,  drawn  by  two  horses  and  containing  six 
other  persons,  from  the  Base  Station  of  the  Mount 
Washington  Railway  to  his  house  in  Jefferson  High- 
lands, The  formal  opening  was  held  on  Tuesday, 
September  9,  1902,  when  Mr.  Crawford  drove  over 
the   road  in  an  eight-horse  wagon,  in  which  were 

375 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Governor  Chester  B.  Jordan  and  his  councillors. 
At  the  summit  of  the  road  the  party  was  met  by  a 
cavalcade  from  Bretton  Woods.  After  an  exchange 
of  bugle  salutes,  a  dismounting,  a  handshaking,  and 
general  congratulation,  the  horsemen  escorted  the 
governor's  party  to  the  Mount  Washington  Hotel, 
then  recently  opened,  where  luncheon  was  had. 
Among  the  party  at  the  opening  was  the  venerable 
Stephen  M.  Crawford,  son  of  Ethan  Allen  Crawford, 
the  pioneer. 

This  road,  so  auspiciously  opened,  was  nearly  de- 
stroyed by  the  tremendous  downpour  of  June  ii 
and  12,  1903,  but  it  was  repaired  and  in  July,  1904, 
reopened. 

Of  late  years  the  Jefferson  division  has  been  usable 
only  for  horses  by  fording,  as  the  bridges  over  two 
streams  had  not  been  replaced.  After  the  Legislature 
of  1 9 14  had  failed  to  make  an  appropriation  for 
reopening  the  road  so  as  to  make  it  passable  by  auto- 
mobiles, the  Bretton  Woods  Company  and  a  promi- 
nent summer  resident  of  Jefferson  Highlands  jointly 
undertook  to  rebuild  the  road  at  their  own  expense. 
In  19 1 5,  it  was  advertised  to  be  open,  but  the  fre- 
quent rains  of  that  summer  rendered  it  rather  unsafe 
or  at  any  rate  difficult  to  travel  over. 


XVIII 

THE  LUMBER  INDUSTRY  IN  THE  WHITE  MOUN- 
TAINS —  THE  PERIL  OF  THE  FORESTS  —  THE 
WHITE  MOUNTAIN  NATIONAL  FOREST  —  OTHER 
RESERVATIONS 

But  one  other  important  event,  and  that  one 
which  is  still  in  process,  remains  to  be  recorded  be- 
fore this  chronicle  shall  be  completed  by  having  been 
brought  down  to  this  present.  The  event  referred 
to  is  the  creation  and  increment  of  the  White  Moun- 
tain National  Forest. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  a  proper  understanding  of 
the  circumstances  which  gradually  made  evident  the 
necessity  for  action  of  this  sort,  it  is  essential  to 
review  briefly  the  history  of  lumbering  in  this  region 
and  to  give  also  some  facts  relating  to  the  local 
effects  of  the  reckless  cutting  of  the  trees  practiced 
by  settlers  and  lumbermen,  and,  further,  some  in- 
formation regarding  the  destructive  effects  here  and 
there  in  the  Mountains  of  that  other  menace  to  the 
life  of  the  forest,  the  forest  fire.  When  this  shall 
have  been  done,  I  shall  rehearse  as  briefly  as  I  may 
the  steps  in  the  rather  prolonged  process  which 
proved  necessary  to  bring  about  the  desired  action 
in  respect  to  the  White  Mountain  forest  on  the  part 
of  the  Federal  Government,  and  shall  conclude  with 
some  brief  statements  as  to  the  other  reservations  in 
the  region. 

377 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

From  the  first  settlement  of  the  region  of  northern 
New  Hampshire,  lumbering  has  been  a  leading  in- 
dustry there.  In  the  earlier  settled  towns  along  the 
coast  there  was  from  the  beginning  a  demand  for 
building  material  and  ship  timber,  and  so  the  set- 
tlers in  the  river  valleys  among  the  Mountains  soon 
recognized  the  commercial  value  of  the  veteran 
white  pines.  Moreover,  the  forests  were  regarded  as 
more  or  less  of  an  obstruction  to  agriculture  and  as 
therefore  to  be  removed  as  soon  and  as  rapidly  as 
possible.  The  histories  of  the  early  days  of  various 
towns  bear  witness  to  the  beginning  and  develop- 
ment of  the  lumber  industry.  An  account  of  Shel- 
burne  in  1800  speaks  of  the  prodigal  use  of  the  best 
trees  for  the  frames  of  houses  and  for  the  making 
of  shingles,  baskets,  chair  bottoms,  ox  bows,  etc., 
all  the  rest  of  the  timber  cleared,  it  is  stated,  being 
piled  and  burned  on  the  spot;  and  the  record  goes 
on  to  say :  "Logging  was  always  a  standard  industry, 
and  the  timber  holds  out  like  the  widow's  meal  and 
oil.  All  the  pines  went  first;  nothing  else  was  fit 
for  building  purposes  in  those. days."  The  "Craw- 
ford History,"  in  recording  the  chief  facts  regarding 
the  settlement  and  growth  of  Conway  touches  upon 
the  activity  of  the  early  inhabitants  of  that  town  in 
this  direction:  "They  soon  began  the  lumber  busi- 
ness by  floating  logs  and  masts  down  the  Saco  to 
its  mouth,  where  they  received  bread  stuff  and  other 
necessaries  of  life  in  exchange." 

By  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  industry 
had  become  well  established  as  one  of  the  region's 
principal  ones.   It  is  stated  that  the  white  pine  was 

378 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

then  still  abundant,  although  vast  quantities  of  it 
had  already  been  sent  to  the  market,  the  largest  and 
best  of  such  trees  being  used  for  the  masts  of  vessels.^ 
Berlin,  now  become,  because  of  its  neighboring  for- 
ests and  its  water  power,  such  an  important  indus- 
trial center,  even  then  had  three  large  sawmills 
employing  each  about  fifty  men,  besides  several 
small  ones.  The  value  of  the  lumber  product  in  New 
Hampshire  multiplied  nine  times  in  the  last  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  and  nearly  doubled  in  the 
decade  1 890-1 900. 

So  vast,  however,  were  formerly  the  forests  in  the 
valleys  and  on  the  lower  slopes  of  the  Mountains 
themselves  that  the  supply  of  timber  seemed  inex- 
haustible, and  as,  therefore,  no  thought  of  a  possible 
future  scarcity  ever  entered  the  minds  of  the  early 
lumbermen,  no  care,  naturally,  was  taken  by  them 
in  cutting  off  the  trees. 

But  an  important  discovery  in  connection  with 
one  of  the  leading  manufacturing  industries  of  New 
England  was  destined  to  affect  very  greatly  the  for- 
ests of  the  northern  region,  not  only  as  to  quantity 
but  also  as  to  kind.  Until  about  1870  nearly  all 
paper  was  made  from  rags.  Since  that  time,  in  the 
making  of  many  cheaper  grades  of  paper,  and  espe- 
cially that  used  for  newspapers,  wood  fibers  have 
been  almost  entirely  substituted  for  rags,  the  fibers 

^  In  colonial  days  it  was  specially  stipulated  in  the  royal  grants 
that  white  and  other  pine  trees,  "fit  for  masting  our  royal  navy," 
were  to  be  carefully  preserved  for  that  use,  the  cutting  for  any  other 
purpose  of  any  tree  marked  with  the  broad  arrow  being,  under  British 
law,  a  felony  punishable  by  a  heavy  fine  and  involving  also  forfeiture 
of  the  rights  of  the  grantee,  his  heirs  and  assigns. 

379 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

being  transformed  into  paper  pulp  by  mechanical 
and  chemical  processes.  What  this  change  has  meant 
for  the  White  Mountain  forests,  with  their  abun- 
dance of  spruce,  the  chief  tree  used  for  the  purpose 
of  making  paper  pulp,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
statement  that  during  the  decade  between  1890  and 
1900  the  growth  of  the  paper  and  wood-pulp  indus- 
try in  New  Hampshire  exceeded  that  made  in  any 
other  State,  the  value  of  the  product  increasing  from 
$1,282,022  in  1889  to  $7,244,733  in  1899.  This  in- 
crease was  well  maintained  in  the  next  census  period, 
the  value  of  the  product  rising  in  1909  to  $13,994,251, 
an  increase  of  ninety-three  per  cent  over  that  of 
1899. 

Other  wood  industries  also  materially  affect  the 
forests  of  northern  New  Hampshire.  These  are  the 
production  of  rough  bobbins,  in  which  various  spe- 
cies of  birch,  the  sugar  maple,  and  the  beech  are 
used;  the  manufacture  of  shoe-pegs,  utilizing  the 
paper  and  the  yellow  birch ;  the  crutch  industry,  in 
which  the  wood  of  the  yellow  and  the  paper  birch 
and  of  the  sugar  maple  is  employed ;  and  the  manu- 
facture of  excelsior,  spools,  rakes,  chairs,  veneering, 
ladder  rounds,  etc. 

The  statistical  and  other  information  just  given 
will  furnish  some  indication  of  what  has  been  the 
effect  of  human  industry  in  wood  on  forest  condi- 
tions in  this  region.  Before  considering,  however, 
the  results  of  this  great  industrial  development,  as 
shown  in  the  forests  themselves,  let  us  turn  our 
attention  to  the  other  agency  imperiling  the  tree- 
life  of  the  region. 

380 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

Forest  fires  of  greater  or  less  extent  and  severity- 
have  been  an  accompaniment  of  lumbering  and  land- 
clearing  from  settlement  days.  But  the  introduction 
of  the  steam  railroad  as  a  common  carrier  and  as  an 
adjunct  of  the  logging  industry,  and  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  persons  who  resort  to  the  woods  for 
pleasure,  have  in  more  recent  times  greatly  increased 
the  number  and  the  danger  of  such  fires,  and  have 
operated  to  render  the  fire  question  one  of  the  first 
importance  to  forest  maintenance.  Many  of  the 
fires  that  occur  run  over  logged  land,  but  often  con- 
siderable areas  of  virgin  forest  are  destroyed  by  this 
agency. 

The  White  Mountain  region  has,  fortunately,  not 
been  visited  by  such  catastrophic  fires  as  have  oc- 
curred in  some  other  regions,  but,  nevertheless,  a 
number  of  destructive  ones  have  devastated  large 
areas.  One  in  the  Zealand  Valley,  in  1888,  starting, 
as  is  supposed,  from  a  burning  match  dropped  by  a 
smoker,  ran  over  twelve  thousand  acres  which  had 
been  lumbered  for  spruce  saw  timber,  destroying 
the  remaining  small  spruce  and  the  hardwood  on 
the  tract,  together  with  about  two  million  board 
feet  of  saw  logs. 

Much  more  extensive  and  destructive  fires  oc- 
curred in  the  spring  of  1903,  burning  over  more  than 
a  tenth  of  the  total  White  Mountain  area  and  entail- 
ing a  loss  at  the  time,  to  say  nothing  of  the  future, 
estimated  conservatively  at  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  About  ten  thousand  acres  of  this 
was  in  a  part  of  the  Zealand  Valley  which  escaped 
the  fire  of  1888.    About  eighteen  thousand  acres 

381 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

were  burned  over  in  the  townships  of  Kilkenny  and 
Berlin  in  the  region  to  the  north  of  the  Pliny  and 
Crescent  Ranges  and  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Pilot 
Range.  Another  large  tract  devastated  in  that  year 
was  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Wild  River  Valley  in 
the  Carter  Range  region.  The  Twin  Mountain 
Range  and  the  lower  slopes  of  Mounts  Garfield  and 
Lafayette  suffered  greatly  from  a  fire,  in  August, 
1907,  which  lasted  several  days  and  burned  over 
about  thirty-five  thousand  acres,  mostly  of  land 
that  had  been  cut  over.  Much  timber  was  thereby 
consumed  and  the  forest  growth  retarded  for  thirty 
years. 

As  to  the  causes  of  forest  fires,  it  may  be  confi- 
dently affirmed  that  the  most  prolific  one  is  the  rail- 
road locomotive,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  great 
fires  of  1903  in  the  Mountains  may  be  ascribed  to 
this  cause.  As  bearing  on  this  point  may  be  recorded 
the  fact  that  a  division  superintendent  in  the  White 
Mountain  region  had  in  his  office,  on  September  12 
of  that  year,  five  hundred  and  fifty-four  separate 
reports  of  fires  causing  greater  or  less  damage  to 
neighboring  property  during  that  year. 

In  view  of  the  danger  from  fire,  by  far  the  most 
serious  one  affecting  the  White  Mountains  as  a  sum- 
mer resort,  as  the  very  existence  of  the  region  as 
such  depends  directly  upon  the  protection  of  the 
forests  from  this  destroyer  of  landscape  beauty,  the 
Forest  Service  of  the  National  Government  recom- 
mended, some  ten  years  ago,  the  adoption  of  legis- 
lation for  the  organization  of  an  adequate  fire  serv- 
ice by  the  State  of  New  Hampshire.   Happily,  it 

382 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

can  be  recorded  that  the  State  adopted  the  recom- 
mendation and  now  has  one  of  the  best  fire  systems 
in  the  United  States,  under  the  direction  of  a  State 
Forester  and  with  fire  wardens  and  deputy  wardens 
in  every  town.  In  bringing  about  this  fortunate 
condition  the  Society  for  the  Protection  of  New 
Hampshire  Forests  has  played  a  most  important 
part,  as  it  has  also  in  initiating  and  promoting  many 
other  movements  affecting  the  forests  of  the  White 
Mountain  region. 

Let  us  return  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  lum- 
bering industry  and  its  effects  on  the  White  Moun- 
tain forests.  By  their  careless  methods  of  cutting, 
the  early  settlers  and  lumbermen  removed  large 
portions  of  the  virgin  forest  in  the  valleys  and  on 
the  lower  slopes,  which  were  easy  of  access,  and  by 
their  selection  for  lumber  purposes  of  the  valuable 
conifers,  —  the  spruce,  the  white  pine,  the  hemlock, 
and  the  balsam,  of  which  the  primeval  forests  were 
mostly  composed,  —  they  brought  about  a  great 
change  in  the  character  of  the  forests,  the  hard- 
woods, through  being  present  in  mixture  with  the 
original  conifers,  and  thus  causing  the  growth  that 
came  up  after  lumbering  to  be  of  their  kind,  coming 
to  be  in  great  preponderance.  So  comparatively 
small,  however,  was  the  ratio,  of  the  amount  of  tim- 
ber cut  to  the  vast  amount  of  forest  in  the  region, 
and  so  considerable,  even  though  slow,  was  the  re- 
production, especially  of  hardwoods,  on  the  cut- 
over  land  and  on  land  originally  cleared  for  pasture 
and  agricultural  purposes  but  subsequently  aban- 
doned as  unprofitable,  that  no  apprehension  of  the 

383 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Mountains  being  some  time  in  the  future  denuded 
of  their  forest  covering  came  into  the  minds  of  lovers 
of  the  region  in  the  eadier  period  of  its  use  and 
growth  as  a  summer  vacation  land. 

Let  me  briefly  set  down  also  some  economic  facts 
and  conditions  which  have  operated  adversely  to 
the  welfare  of  the  forests.  Down  to  1867  the  State  of 
New  Hampshire  owned  the  greater  part  of  the  White 
Mountain  region.  The  policy  of  the  State  being, 
however,  to  dispose  of  its  public  lands  as  fast  as 
possible,  large  tracts  were  in  consequence  sold  for 
almost  nothing.  In  the  year  just  named,  Governor 
Harriman,  acting  in  pursuance  of  this  policy,  was 
induced  to  part  with  this  domain  for  the  paltry  sum 
of  twenty-six  thousand  dollars.  A  most  unfortunate 
sale  for  the  State  this  proved  to  be  in  the  light  of 
future  circumstances.  Had  the  region  remained  in 
the  possession  of  the  Commonwealth  there  would 
have  been  saved  much  expense  and  time,  and  much 
anxiety  and  effort  also,  in  connection  with  the  im- 
portant matter  of  the  preservation  of  the  district's 
forests  and  of  its  beauty,  which  is  in  such  large 
measure  dependent  upon  them. 

The  new  owners  of  this  rich  domain,  so  lightly 
parted  with,  were  speculators,  who  cut  off  as  rap- 
idly as  they  could  the  mature  timber  in  order  to  pay 
the  taxes  and  to  obtain  as  much  profit  as  possible. 
At  length  the  increasing  scarcity  of  spruce  lumber 
and  the  tariff  on  building  materials  impelled  the 
owners,  who  for  the  most  part  had  remained  the 
same  persons  as  had  originally  bought  the  land,  to 
cut  the  trees  below  the  line  of  their  maturity.  These 

384 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

considerations  urging  to  destructive  cutting  were 
strongly  reinforced  by  the  further  inducement  aris- 
ing from  the  demands  of  the  wood-pulp  industry, 
which  operated  to  cause  some  owners  to  cut  down 
the  spruce,  poplar,  and  birch  trees  to  mere  saplings, 
and  others  to  clear  off  the  trees  entirely,  especially 
in  places,  such  as  the  higher  slopes,  where  logging  is 
difficult.  In  the  former  case  a  quarter  of  a  century 
or  more  is  required  to  restore  the  forest;  in  the  lat- 
ter, often  fires  ran  over  the  denuded  area,  consum- 
ing not  only  all  vegetation,  but  also  destroying  the 
humus  and  other  organic  matter  in  the  soil  and  thus 
causing  the  land  to  be  lost  to  forest  production.  In 
the  vicinity  of  Whitefield,  Berlin,  and  Gorham  the 
forests  were  so  cut  off  by  about  1890  as  to  lay  waste 
the  country,  while  in  the  Zealand  Valley  reckless 
lumbering  and  destructive  fires  had  produced  at 
that  period  a  condition  of  extreme  desolation  over  a 
large  tract.  The  aim  of  the  lumbermen  in  these  well- 
known  instances  of  destructive  cutting  was  evidently 
to  wrest  the  last  dollar  from  the  land,  the  pecuniary 
side  of  the  forests  being  naturally  that  on  which  they 
chiefly  regarded  them.  In  process  of  time  every  val- 
uable timber  area  was  either  bought  by  the  large 
lumber  and  paper  companies,  or,  when  still  held  by 
the  original  owners,  was  subject  to  contracts  which 
called  for  the  cutting  of  the  trees  under  certain 
conditions  of  stumpage. 

Such  being  the  state  of  affairs  toward  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
persons  interested  in  the  White  Mountains  as  a 
summer  resort  and  in  the  preservation  of  the  region's 

385 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

natural  beauties  for  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the 
people,  watching  the  progress  of  the  injudicious  and 
often  ruinous  lumbering  operations,  began  to  be 
alarmed  for  the  future  of  the  region  and  to  agitate 
for  a  change  of  policy.  In  the  first  number  (Feb- 
ruary 29,  1888)  of  Garden  and  Forest,  a  quondam 
weekly  periodical  conducted  by  Professor  Charles 
Sprague  Sargent,  the  historian  Parkman  had  a  brief 
article  in  which  he  made  a  plea  for  the  preservation 
of  the  forests  of  the  White  Mountains  on  the  ground 
of  their  importance  as  elements  of  the  scenery  that 
attracts  so  many  summer  visitors.  He  averred  that 
the  Mountains  owe  three  fourths  of  their  charm  to 
their  primeval  forests  and  prophesied  that  if  they 
are  robbed  of  their  forests  they  will  become,  like 
some  parts  of  the  Pyrenees,  without  interest  because 
stripped  bare.  If  proper  cutting  is  practiced,  he 
declared,  this  unfortunate  result  will  be  avoided  and 
also  some  droughts  and  freshets  saved.  Later  in  the 
same  year  the  editor  advocated  the  purchase  of  all 
the  forest  region  by  the  State  or  by  the  railroads, 
and  stated  that,  unless  one  of  these  plans  or  some 
other  looking  to  the  permanent  safety  of  the  forests 
is  adopted,  the  region  and  its  usefulness  would  be 
ruined.  In  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  February,  1893, 
Julius  H.  Ward,  author  of  "The  White  Mountains" 
(1890),  published  a  more  extended  article  with  the 
title,  "White  Mountain  Forests  in  Peril."  In  this 
he  sounded  the  note  of  warning  very  strongly,  tell- 
ing of  the  wasteful  and  destructive  lumbering,  — 
"unwise  and  barbarous,"  he  characterized  it, — 
giving  a  number  of  typical  instances  of  the  results  of 

386 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

such  cutting,  and  asserting  that  a  few  lumbermen 
have  it  in  their  power  "to  spoil  the  whole  White 
Mountain  region  for  a  period  of  fifty  years,  to  dry 
up  the  east  branch  of  the  Pemigewasset,  to  reduce 
the  Merrimac  to  the  size  of  a  brook  in  summer,  and 
to  bring  about  a  desolation  like  that  which  surrounds 
Jerusalem  in  the  Holy  Land."  The  protection  and 
preservation  of  these  forests  should  be  regarded  as  a 
national  problem,  he  declared,  the  White  Mountains 
with  their  forests  being  "worth  infinitely  more  for 
the  purpose  of  a  great  national  park  than  for  the 
temporary  supply  of  lumber  which  they  furnish  to 
the  market."  He  suggested  that  if  the  one  or  two 
large  owners  should  adopt  the  regulation,  already 
followed  by  one  company,  of  cutting  no  tree  below 
twelve  inches  at  the  butt,  they  would  practically 
settle  the  whole  matter.  His  idea  was  that  the  State 
through  a  forest  commission  should  purchase  from 
the  owners  of  woodland  in  certain  regions  an  agree- 
ment that  they  would  not  cut  trees  below  a  certain 
size. 

Other  writers  took  up  the  advocacy  of  measures 
to  preserve  the  White  Mountain  forests,  and,  aided 
by  the  establishment  of  a  scientific  forestry  pro- 
gramme by  the  National  Government  and  the  pop- 
ular interest  taken  in  the  subject  of  conservation, 
an  agitation  in  favor  of  a  forest  reservation  in  the 
region  was  started,  which  eventually  became  nation- 
wide and  which  was  destined  after  many  vexatious 
delays  to  reach  fruition. 

In  the  first  year  (1901)  of  its  organization  the 
Society  for  the  Protection  of  New  Hampshire  For- 

387 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

ests  advocated  and  engaged  actively  in  work  for  this 
object,  and  during  the  whole  course  of  the  move- 
ment it  has  taken  a  prominent  part  in  furthering  it. 
In  1902,  a  meeting,  called  by  the  Reverend  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  was  held  at  Intervale,  for  the  purpose 
of  opening  a  campaign  for  a  national  White  Moun- 
tain Forest  Reserve.  Dr.  Hale  worked  early  and  late 
for  this  end  and  it  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  his  death 
came  before  his  faith  became  a  reality. 

Early  in  the  following  year  the  Legislature  of 
New  Hampshire  passed  a  bill,  approved  January  10, 
favoring  the  proposal  to  establish  a  White  Moun- 
tain reserve  and  giving  the  State's  consent  to  the 
acquisition  by  purchase,  gift,  or  condemnation 
according  to  law,  of  such  lands  as  in  the  opinion  of 
the  Federal  Government  may  be  needed  for  the 
purpose.  At  the  same  session  also  was  passed  a  reso- 
lution authorizing  and  directing  the  State  Forestry 
Commission  to  procure  a  general  examination  of  the 
forest  lands  of  the  White  Mountains  by  employees 
of  the  Bureau  of  Forestry  in  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  at  Washington,  the  expense  not  to  ex- 
ceed five  thousand  dollars  and  the  report  of  the 
investigators  to  be  laid  before  the  next  session  of  the 
General  Court.  The  examination  thus  provided  for 
was  begun  in  May  of  that  year  and  was  carried  on 
during  the  summer  months.  The  printed  report,^ 
with  its  maps  and  plates,  is  a  comprehensive  and 

^  To  this  report,  entitled  "Forest  Conditions  of  Northern  New 
Hampshire,"  which  was  prepared  by  Alfred  K.  Chittenden,  an  assist- 
ant forest  inspector,  and  which  was  published  by  the  Bureau  of  For- 
estry of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  in  1905,  I  am 
much  indebted. 

388 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

illuminating  survey  of  the  forest  conditions  of  north- 
ern New  Hampshire  at  that  time,  and  their  causes. 
It  embodied  a  number  of  recommendations,  most  of 
which  have  since  been  adopted  and  put  into  effect. 
It  was  suggested,  by  some  of  the  opponents  of  the 
proposal  to  have  the  National  Government  purchase 
forest  lands  in  the  White  Mountains,  that  the  State 
of  New  Hampshire  should  herself  acquire  for  a  State 
Reservation  these  lands  that  she  had  once  practically 
given  away.  But  it  was  soon  realized  that  it  was 
impossible  for  that  small  and  comparatively  poor 
State  to  follow  the  lead  of  large  and  wealthy  States 
such  as  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Michigan, 
and,  moreover.  New  Hampshire  would  have  to  take 
over  a  proportionately  much  larger  area  than  these 
States  had  done.  An  alternative  suggestion  was  then 
made,  which  was  that  the  New  England  States 
should  combine  to  make  the  desired  purchase,  it 
being  argued  that  the  rivers  that  rise  within  the 
White  Mountain  region  contribute  largely  to  the 
prosperity  of  all  the  New  England  States  save  one, 
and  that  New  Hampshire  ought  not  to  be  expected 
to  burden  herself  with  debt  for  the  benefit  of  her 
neighbors.  This  solution  of  the  problem  was  not, 
however,  seriously  regarded  as  a  feasible  one,  inas- 
much as  the  neighboring  States  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  buy  lands  outside  their  own  borders  for 
the  creation  of  a  forest  reserve  over  which  they 
could  have  no  control,  and  inasmuch  as,  further- 
more, concerted  action  for  such  an  object  on  the 
part  of  so  many  legislatures  would  be  well-nigh  an 
impossibility. 

389 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

It  was  soon  patent,  therefore,  to  friends  of  the 
project  of  creating  a  White  Mountain  reserve  that  it 
could  be  brought  about  only  through  acquisition  of 
the  region  by  the  National  Government,  and,  ac- 
cordingly, a  vigorous  movement  was  begun  looking 
toward  the  consummation  of  such  a  result.  After 
years  of  agitation,  carried  on  in  Congress  and  out  of 
it  by  favorably  disposed  legislators,  societies,  news- 
papers, and  individuals,  in  all  parts  of  the  East, 
against  tremendous  opposition  on  the  part  of  poli- 
ticians and  others,  success  was  at  length  achieved,  a 
striking  instance  of  the  effect  of  public  opinion  when 
widespread  and  persistent. 

Space  cannot  be  taken  to  do  more  than  outline 
the  successive  steps  in  Congress  from  the  initiation 
of  the  project  there  until  the  legislation  was  consum- 
mated.^ On  November  ii,  1903,  Senator  Hoar,  of 
Massachusetts,  presented  to  the  Senate  resolutions 
of  the  General  Court  of  his  State  in  favor  of  enacting 
national  legislation  to  protect  the  forests  of  the 
White  Mountains.  On  the  loth  of  the  following 
month,  Senator  Gallinger,  of  New  Hampshire,  in- 
troduced a  bill  calling  for  the  appropriation  of  not 
more  than  five  million  dollars,  one  million  to  be 
immediately  available,  to  enable  the  Secretary  of 
Agriculture  to  purchase  land  suited  to  the  purpose 
of  a  national  forest  reserve  in  the  White  Mountains, 
in  total  extent  not  to  exceed  one  million  acres.  This 
bill  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Forest  Reser- 

^  I  am  indebted,  for  information  as  to  the  course  of  congressional 
action  down  to  the  end  of  the  Sixtieth  Congress  (March  3,  1909),  to 
an  article,  "The  Fight  for  the  Appalachian  Forests,"  by  Edwin  A. 
Start,  in  Conservation  for  May,  1909. 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

vations  and  the  Protection  of  Game,  to  which  Sen- 
ator Gallinger  had,  as  a  member  of  the  Republican 
Committee  on  Committees,  procured  the  assign- 
ment of  his  colleague,  Senator  Burnham.  A  bill 
was  introduced  in  the  House,  also,  by  Representa- 
tive Currier,  of  New  Hampshire.  The  Senate  Com- 
mittee to  which  the  Gallinger  bill  had  been  referred 
reported  favorably  upon  it,  Senator  Burnham's  re- 
port, which  was  the  first  official  notice  of  the  North- 
ern project,  discussing  clearly  all  phases  of  the  mat- 
ter and  demonstrating  strongly  the  importance, 
commercial  and  other,  of  protecting  the  forests. 
The  Fifty-eighth  Congress  passed  into  history  with- 
out taking  any  action  on  the  bills,  and  new  ones  were 
promptly  introduced  in  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress. 

So  strong,  however,  was  the  opposition  in  Con- 
gress to  this  largely  New  England  matter,  which 
was  regarded  by  many  legislators  as  a  sentimental 
project  without  economic  basis,  that  it  was  soon 
evident  to  friends  of  the  measure  that  it  could  be 
carried  only  through  combination  with  the  earlier 
and  related  Southern  one  for  creating  a  national 
forest  reservation  in  the  Southern  Appalachians, 
which  would  thus  enlist  a  much  wider  support. 

Accordingly,  a  bill  uniting  the  two  projects,  which 
had  been  prepared  by  a  committee  appointed  by  the 
American  Forestry  Association  at  its  annual  meeting 
in  January,  1906,  to  be  offered  as  a  substitute  for  the 
separate  measures,  and  which  had  been  accepted  by 
all  interested,  was  immediately  laid  before  the  Sen- 
ate Committee  on  Forest  Reservations  and  the  Pro- 
tection of  Game.  This  union  bill,  which  called  for  an 

391 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

initial  appropriation  of  three  million  dollars,  was 
promptly  reported  to  the  Senate  by  that  committee 
in  lieu  of  the  two  bills  already  introduced. 

The  only  accomplishment  in  this  direction,  how- 
ever, of  the  Fifty-ninth  Congress,  which  ended 
March  2,  1907,  was  the  passage  of  a  bill  appropriat- 
ing twenty-five  thousand  dollars  for  the  survey  of 
the  two  regions  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture. 
This  investigation  was  conducted  during  that  sum- 
mer by  the  Forest  Service,  and  a  valuable  report, 
recommending  the  purchase  of  five  million  acres  in 
the  Southern  Appalachians  and  six  hundred  thou- 
sand acres  in  the  White  Mountains,  was  made  by 
the  Secretary  of  Agriculture  to  the  Sixtieth  Con- 
gress. 

When  new  bills  were  introduced  in  the  first  session 
of  the  Sixtieth  Congress  in  both  Senate  and  House, 
it  was  evident  that  there  was  a  great  and  growing 
support  behind  the  project,  and  this  fact  caused  the 
opposition  in  the  House  to  stiffen  and  to  take  an- 
other than  the  economical  tack.  A  very  strong  case 
for  the  measure  was  presented  at  a  hearing  before 
the  House  Committee  on  Agriculture  in  January, 
1908,  but  the  adverse  majority  in  the  committee  was 
not  to  be  overcome  without  further  struggle.  The 
constitutionality  of  a  bill  looking  to  the  purchase  by 
the  National  Government  of  lands  within  a  State 
for  forest  reserves  had  early  been  questioned  in  the 
House,  and  it  was  now  decided  to  refer  this  aspect 
of  the  matter  to  the  House  Judiciary  Committee, 
which  action  was  taken  in  February.  Finally,  late  in 
April,  that  tribunal  gravely  reported  that  it  was  its 

392 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

decision  that  the  Federal  Government  had  no  power 
to  acquire  lands  within  a  State  solely  for  forest 
reserves,  but  could  purchase  such  lands  only  to 
protect  the  navigability  of  rivers,  thus  resting  the 
validity  of  all  such  measures  upon  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Clause  of  the  Constitution.  The  pending 
bills,  not  being  thus  limited  in  purpose,  were  de- 
clared to  be  unconstitutional.  The  Senate  bill  was 
then  modified  to  meet  this  opinion,  and  in  its  new 
form  was  passed  by  the  Senate  in  the  closing  days 
of  the  session.  When  received  in  the  House,  it  was 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Agriculture,  to  the 
majority  of  which  it  still  proved  unacceptable. 

Thus  a  bill  for  national  forest  reserves  in  the 
Southern  Appalachians  and  in  the  White  Mountains 
had  already  passed  the  Senate  a  number  of  times 
before  the  opening  of  the  second  session  of  the 
Sixtieth  Congress,  in  December,  1908,  but  had  not 
been  as  yet  permitted  to  come  before  the  House. 
At  length,  to  meet  the  objections  to  the  Senate  bill 
of  the  House  Committee  on  Agriculture,  on  the 
score  of  its  unconstitutionality,  a  substitute  for  the 
Senate  bill  which  would  be  acceptable  to  a  majority 
of  the  committee,  and  which,  it  was  hoped,  would 
pass  the  House,  was  prepared  by  Representatives 
Weeks,  of-  Massachusetts,  and  Lever,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, with  the  assistance  of  Representative  Currier, 
of  New  Hampshire.  This  new  bill,  which  was  ac- 
cepted by  the  committee  and  reported  to  the  House 
in  January,  1909,  was  fittingly  given  the  name  of 
Representative  (now  Senator)  John  W.  Weeks,  a 
native  of  Lancaster,  New  Hampshire,  who  worked 

393 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

indefatigably  in  and  out  of  the  House  to  promote 
the  project  of  a  White  Mountain  reserve,  and  who, 
fortunately,  had  been  appointed  to  the  Committee 
on  Agriculture  by  Speaker  Cannon,  in  deference  to 
the  clamor  which  arose  when  the  Speaker  appointed 
Representative  Scott,  of  Kansas,  an  opponent  of  the 
project,  as  chairman,  instead  of  Henry,  of  Connec- 
ticut, the  ranking  member.  To  overcome  the  ob- 
jection to  the  appropriation  of  money  mainly  for 
the  benefit  of  certain  sections  and  to  draw  the  teeth 
of  Representatives  who  were  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
project,  the  bill  was  made  absolutely  general  in  its 
terms.  It  provided  for  the  appropriation  for  the 
current  year  of  one  million  dollars  and  for  each 
fiscal  year  thereafter  of  a  sum  not  to  exceed  two 
million  dollars  "for  use  in  the  examination,  survey, 
and  acquirement  of  lands  located  on  the  headwaters 
of  navigable  streams  or  those  which  are  being  or 
may  be  developed  for  navigable  purposes,"  until  this 
provision  should  expire  by  limitation.  No  locality 
was  mentioned,  and  the  bill  therefore  applied  to  the 
whole  United  States;  but,  as  the  headwaters  of  the 
rivers  of  the  West  were  already  largely  protected,  it 
was  understood  that  the  first  purchases  were  to  be 
made  in  the  White  Mountains  and  Southern  Appa- 
lachians and  the  bill  was  regarded  as  a  bill  relating 
to  these  regions. 

Into  the  Weeks  Bill  were  incorporated  provisions 
from  the  Scott  Bill  ^  (one  fathered  by  the  chairman 

*  The  Scott  Bill  passed  the  House  and  was  referred  in  the  Senate 
to  the  Committee  on  Commerce,  by  which  it  was  pigeonholed.  It  was 
in  no  way  acceptable  to  the  friends  of  practical  Appalachian  forest 
legislation. 

394 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

of  the  House  Committee  on  Agriculture  and  de- 
signed to  sidetrack  the  measure)  permitting  States 
to  combine  for  the  purpose  of  conserving  the  forests 
and  the  water  supply  and  appropriating  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  to  enable  the  Secretary  of  Agri- 
culture to  cooperate  with  any  State  or  group  of 
States  in  this  object. 

In  this  form  the  bill  looking  to  the  protection  of 
the  White  Mountain  forests  eventually  passed  the 
House  on  March  i,  1909,  by  a  close  vote,  but  it 
failed  of  consideration  in  the  Senate  in  the  closing 
days  of  the  session.  This  killed  the  bill  so  far  as 
that  Congress  was  concerned. 

In  the  Sixty-first  Congress,  the  Weeks  Bill  again 
passed  the  House,  June  24,  1910,  the  day  before  the 
close  of  the  second  session.  Finally,  in  February, 
191 1,  during  the  third  session  of  this  Congress,  the 
bill  passed  the  Senate  and  became  a  law  when 
President  Taft  signed  it  on  March  i.^ 

By  the  Weeks  Act,  a  new  doctrine  in  government 
was  asserted,  in  that  Congress  decreed  that  the 
nation  had  an  interest  in  the  headwaters  of  navi- 
gable streams  and  might  properly  spend  public 
money  in  the  acquisition  and  protection  of  water- 
sheds. Evidently  suspicious,  however,  that  there 
was  opportunity  for  fraud.  Congress  had  insured 
efficiency  and  honesty  in  the  administration  of  the 

^  The  act,  as  it  went  on  the  statute  book,  appropriated  one  million 
dollars  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1910,  and  a  sum  not  exceed- 
ing two  million  dollars  for  each  fiscal  year  thereafter,  the  provisions 
appropriating  these  sums  expiring  by  limitation  on  June  30,  1915. 
The  first  one  million  dollars  was  never  appropriated  because  the  limit 
of  time  specified  for  its  use  expired  before  the  bill  became  a  law. 

395 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

law  by  a  number  of  checks,  which,  while  doubtless 
necessary,  were  not  conducive  to  speedy  action. 
The  work  of  considering  and  passing  upon  lands 
recommended  for  purchase  and  of  fixing  the  prices 
was  entrusted  by  the  act  to  a  commission,  to  be 
known  as  the  National  Forest  Reservation  Com- 
mission, and  to  consist  of  three  Cabinet  officers,  two 
members  of  the  Senate,  and  two  members  of  the 
House. 

At  its  first  meeting  the  Commission  decided  to 
spend  the  entire  appropriation  in  the  White  Moun- 
tains and  the  Southern  Appalachians.  During  the 
four  months  between  the  passage  of  the  bill  and 
the  end  of  the  fiscal  year,  the  United  States  Forest 
Service  got  quickly  to  work,  secured  offers  of  land 
amounting  to  about  seventy-five  thousand  acres, 
and  completed  the  examination  of  thirty-seven 
thousand  acres.  The  Geological  Survey,  whose  re- 
port that  the  control  of  the  lands  offered  will  pro- 
mote or  protect  the  navigation  of  streams  upon 
whose  watersheds  they  are  was  by  the  act  a  nec- 
essary preliminary,  made  no  report  on  the  White 
Mountain  lands  until  the  following  year.  About 
thirty  thousand  acres  were  purchased  in  the  South, 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  two  million  dollars  ap- 
propriated for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  191 1, 
reverted,  because  unused,  to  the  United  States 
Treasury.  To  remedy  this  loss  and  to  prevent  a  re- 
currence, an  amendment  to  the  Weeks  Act  was  in- 
troduced in  the  House  by  Representative  Weeks  and 
in  the  Senate  by  Senator  Gallinger,  reappropriating 
the  three  million  dollars  not  used,  but  intended  for 

396 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

use  in  the  original  bill  and  making  the  whole  sum 
available  until  used.  This  amendment  was  accepted 
in  part  by  Congress,  the  remainder  of  the  allotments 
being  rendered  available  until  used. 

At  length,  the  Geological  Survey  having  early  in 
1 912  rendered  a  favorable  report  upon  the  desira- 
bility of  acquiring  certain  White  Mountain  forest 
lands  that  had  been  offered,  for  the  regulation  and 
protection  of  the  streams  having  their  source  in 
that  region,  the  first  purchase  under  the  law  was 
authorized  June  16  of  that  year,  when  30,365  acres, 
mostly  on  the  northern  slopes  of  the  Presidential 
Range,  were  accepted. 

Since  this  beginning  of  a  national  forest  was  made, 
the  process  of  acquiring  lands  in  the  White  Moun- 
tains has  gone  on,  although  more  slowly  than  some 
of  its  advocates  approve,  to  be  sure,  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  establishing  titles  and  because  of  the 
extortionate  prices  demanded  by  some  owners.  By 
the  middle  of  1914,  the  area  purchased  amounted 
to  138,572  acres  and  included  some  seven  thousand 
acres  in  the  Moosilauke  region,  more  than  sixteen 
thousand  acres  on  the  north  slopes  of  Mounts  Gar- 
field and  Hale,  thirty-one  thousand  acres  on  the 
northern  Presidential  Range  and  the  Dartmouth 
Range,  some  four  thousand  acres  in  the  Wild  River 
Valley,  and  more  than  four  thousand  acres  on 
Wildcat,  Spruce,  and  Iron  Mountains.  To  the  great 
delight  of  lovers  of  the  White  Mountains  it  was  an- 
nounced, early  in  September,  1914,  that  the  Gov- 
ernment and  the  owners  of  Mount  Washington  had 
come  to  an  agreement  on  the  purchase  price  for  it, 

397 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

that  the  foresters  were  satisfied  with  the  terms, 
and  that  the  National  Forest  Reservation  Commis- 
sion had  approved  the  purchase  and  had  at  the 
same  time  sanctioned  the  acquisition  of  four  other 
tracts.  The  purchase  of  these  areas,  aggregating 
85,592  acres,  was  consummated  later  in  the  year  and 
the  Government  holdings  were  thereby  increased 
to  224,164  acres,  acquired  at  a  cost  of  $1,600,147.50. 
This  is  about  one  third  of  the  acreage,  698,086, 
originally  laid  out  for  purchase. 

The  tract  on  the  Presidential  Range  includes  all 
of  the  great  central  peak  itself,  with  its  flanks  and 
spurs,  and  six  other  peaks  as  well,  Clay,  Jefferson, 
and  Adams  of  the  northern  group,  and  Monroe, 
Franklin,  and  Pleasant  of  the  southern.  Nor  is  this 
all,  for  included  in  this  purchase  is  also  that  long 
southerly  ridge,  the  Montalban,  which  extends  for 
eight  miles  from  Boott  Spur  down  to  the  lower  end 
of  the  Crawford  Notch  at  Bartlett.  This  purchase 
of  33,970  acres  is  by  far  the  most  important  one  yet 
made  by  the  Government  for  the  White  Mountain 
National  Forest,  both  from  a  sentimental  and  from 
an  economic  standpoint,  as  it  comprises  the  grandest 
part  of  the  Mountain  scenery  and  contains  very 
considerable  areas  of  virgin  forest  and  the  fountain- 
heads  of  the  Connecticut,  Androscoggin,  and  Saco 
Rivers. 

Of  the  four  other  tracts  alluded  to,  one  is  even 
larger  than  the  area  on  the  Presidential  Range  just 
spoken  of,  for  it  comprises  45,170  acres.  This  hold- 
ing covers  the  sides  of  two  distinct  mountain  ranges 
in  the  towns  of  Bartlett  and  Albany.    The  other 

398 


THE   WHITE    MOUNTAIN    NATIONAL    FOREST 


The  complete  reservation  as  planned  by  the  National  Forest 
Reservation  Commission,  consisting  of  about  698,000  acres,  is 
shown  by  the  shaded  boundary-line.  The  territory  acquired  to 
date  (1916),  amounting  to  about  272,000  acres,  is  indicated  by 
the  full  shading.  The  upper  part  of  Crawford  Notch  is  a  State 
Forest  Reservation. 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

three  include  5615  acres  on  the  side  of  Mount  White- 
face  in  the  Sandwich  Range,  and  two  small  areas, 
one  of  710  acres  on  the  lower  slopes  of  Mount 
Parker  in  the  Montalban  Ridge  and  the  other  of  127 
acres  along  the  Oliverian  Brook  in  the  town  of 
Benton,  near  the  western  boundary  of  the  purchase 
area. 

During  1915,  further  and  substantial  progress  was 
made  in  the  acquisition  under  the  Weeks  Act  of 
tracts  of  land  for  addition  to  the  White  Mountain 
National  Forest  domain,  the  total  area  and  cost 
being  brought  up  at  the  end  of  the  year,  in  round 
numbers,  to  272,000  acres  and  $1,800,000,  respec- 
tively. One  tract  purchased  includes  some  twenty- 
three  thousand  acres  in  the  Franconia  Notch,  ex- 
tending south  from  the  land  previously  acquired  at 
Eagle  Cliff  to  a  point  beyond  the  lumber  village  of 
Johnson  and  containing  portions  of  Mounts  La- 
fayette, Liberty,  and  Flume  on  the  east  and  Mounts 
Pemigewasset,  Kinsman,  Jackson,  and  Cannon  on 
the  west.  Another  region  acquired  is  the  entire 
watershed  of  the  Zealand  River,  between  the  Twin 
Mountain  and  Rosebrook  Ranges.  The  most  im- 
portant acquisition,  however,  was  the  last  one  of 
the  year,  which  comprises  all  of  the  Bean  Grant,  a 
large  area  adjoining  the  Crawford  House  property 
and  lying  east  and  northeast  of  it.  Included  in  its 
confines  are  portions  of  Mounts  Webster,  Clinton, 
Jackson,  and  Pleasant,  of  the  Presidential  Range, 
whose  many  streams  feed  two  of  New  England's 
principal  rivers,  the  Saco  and  the  Connecticut, 
while  on  the  lower  slopes  of  the  latter  three  moun- 

399 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

tains  stands  some  of  the  finest  primeval  spruce  and 
fir  forest  yet  remaining  in  the  whole  section.  On 
the  south  this  tract  borders  the  New  Hampshire 
State  Forest  in  the  Crawford  Notch,  on  the  west  its 
boundary  follows  the  State  Road  from  Crawford's 
along  toward  the  Jefferson  Notch  and  the  valley  of 
Israel's  River,  while  on  the  north  the  area  joins  the 
earlier  purchases  on  Mount  Washington  and  the 
Northern  Peaks.  At  the  close  of  the  year  some 
other  tracts  had  been  examined  for  purchase,  but 
had  not  been  acquired.^ 

Thus,  as  the  matter  now  stands,  somewhat  more 
than  one  third  of  the  official  purchase  area  has  been 
acquired,  and  an  excellent  beginning  has  been  made 
in  a  great  conservation  project.  As,  however,  the 
appropriations  under  the  Weeks  Law  (of  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  about  three  million  dollars,  of  the 
original  eleven  million  dollars  provided  for,  did  not 
become  available)  ceased  with  the  fiscal  year  ending 
June  30,  1915,  it  will  be  necessary,  for  the  carrying 
to  completion  of  the  undertaking,  that  Congress 
should  make  further  appropriations.  It  is  strongly 
held,  by  those  organizations  and  individuals  that 
have  been  all  these  years  deeply  interested  in  the 
inception  and  progress  of  this  Government  enter- 

^  It  is  a  pleasure  to  make  acknowledgment  of  my  indebtedness  for 
information  about  National  Forest  acquisitions,  etc.,  to  Mr.  Allen 
Chamberlain,  whose  interesting  articles  on  White  Mountain  National 
Forest  and  on  Appalachian  Mountain  Club  subjects  have  been  espe- 
cially helpful  to  me  in  both  connections;  to  Mr.  J,  St.  J.  Benedict, 
Supervisor,  United  States  Forest  Service,  and  to  Mr.  Philip  W.  Ayres, 
Forester  of  the  Society  for  the  Protection  of  New  Hampshire  Forests, 
who,  both  in  his  official  capacity  and  by  his  own  personal  interest 
and  activity,  has  done  so  much  for  the  cause  of  which  he  is  the  official 
representative. 

400 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

prise,  that  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  the 
programme  of  purchases  so  well  begun  should  be 
continued  without  interruption,  as  otherwise  a  great 
economic  loss  to  the  Government  will  result,  not 
only  from  the  failure  to  acquire  valuable  timber 
lands  and  to  protect  further  the  mountain  water- 
sheds, but  from  the  failure  to  utilize  the  existing 
machinery  created  for  the  work  of  acquisition  and 
the  intimate  knowledge  of  conditions  now  possessed 
by  the  force  of  experts  that  has  been  trained. 

The  Secretary  of  Agriculture  was,  accordingly, 
memorialized  by  a  group  of  interested  organiza- 
tions, North  and  South,  and  he  has  recommended 
the  continuation  of  the  appropriations.  With  his  ap- 
proval and  that  of  the  Forest  Reservation  Commis- 
sion, Congress  has  been  asked  to  appropriate  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  out  the  purposes  mentioned  in 
the  Weeks  Act  the  sum  of  two  million  dollars  for 
each  of  the  fiscal  years  ending  on  the  30th  day  of 
June,  1917,  1918,  1919,  1920,  and  1921. 

The  State  of  New  Hampshire  has  done  its  part. 
Besides  the  enabling  legislation  with  reference  to  the 
Federal' Government's  acquisition  of  lands  within 
the  State  and  the  establishment  of  the  splendid 
forest-fire  protection  system  already  mentioned,  the 
State  Legislature,  acting  under  the  stimulus  of  agi- 
tation started  by  that  voluntary  organization  which 
has  done  so  much  for  the  forestry  interests  of  the 
State,  the  Society  for  the  Protection  of  New  Hamp- 
shire Forests,  passed  in  191 1  a  bill  for  the  purchase 
of  the  Crawford  Notch,  which  was  in  danger  of  dis- 
figurement from  logging  operations.    The  Society 

401 


/^ 

w 


?*    ■ 

\  THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

proposed  the  purchase  and  invited  the  cooperation 
of  commercial  bodies,  clubs,  and  individuals  in 
furthering  the  project.  The  Appalachian  Mountain 
Club,  many  women's  clubs,  the  Boston  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  and  a  number  of  newspapers  were  among 
those  actively  interested  in  it. 

Finding  that  definite  information  was  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  legislative  action,  the  Society  carried 
through,  at  an  expense  of  seven  hundred  dollars,  a 
careful  examination  and  survey  of  the  Notch,  and 
prepared  a  report  embodying  an  account  of  the 
kind,  amount,  location,  quality,  and  value  of  the 
timber,  with  maps  and  estimates. 

The  bill,  as  originally  introduced,  called  for  an 
appropriation  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  but 
it  was  amended  by  the  House  so  as  to  make  the 
appropriation  indefinite  by  empowering  the  gover- 
nor and  council  to  issue  bonds  for  a  sum  sufficient 
to  acquire  the  Notch.  Through  a  failure  to  engross 
the  amendment,  the  bill  was  signed  by  the  governor 
without  it.  Discovering  after  the  legislature  had 
adjourned  that  the  bill  was  defective,  the  governor 
requested  a  review  of  it  by  the  supreme  court  of  the 
State  and  by  the  attorney-general,  which  resulted 
in  a  decision  that,  although  the  State  was  without 
power  to  issUe  bonds  in  the  premises,  it  might,  under 
the  right  of  eminent  domain,  take  any  lands  in  the 
Crawford  Notch  that  it  could  pay  for  from  current 
funds  not  otherwise  appropriated.  Under  this  un- 
fortunate circumstance  the  State  was  unable  to  buy 
the  whole  of  the  Notch,  but  it  did  purchase  in  19 12 
the  upper  and  more  picturesque  part,  extending  six 

402 


LUMBER  INDUSTRY  AND  FORESTS 

miles  south  from  the  Crawford  House,  at  a  cost  of 
sixty-two  thousand  dollars.  Much  credit  is  due  to 
Governor  Bass  and  his  council  for  carrying  through 
the  matter  of  purchase,  despite  the  defective  bill. 

By  way  of  conclusion  to  this  account  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  National  and  State  Reservation  projects 
in  the  White  Mountains,  it  may  be  well  to  bring 
together  and  summarize  the  information  relating  to 
such  areas  which  have  been  set  aside  for  the  use  and 
enjoyment  of  the  people  in  this  region,  as  they  ex- 
isted at  the  end  of  the  year  19 15.  The  National 
Forest  then  covered  272,000  acres.  The  State  For- 
estry Commission  held  some  six  thousand  acres  in 
the  Crawford  Notch,  three  hundred  acres  on  Bart- 
lett  Mountain,  one  hundred  and  thirty  acres  above 
Livermore  Falls  in  Campton,  and  forty  acres  in  the 
town  of  Conway,  including  the  Cathedral  and  White 
Horse  Ledges,  presented  by  citizens  to  the  State. 
The  Society  for  the  Protection  of  New  Hampshire 
Forests  owned  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  acres 
in  the  Lost  River  region  and  some  twenty  acres  in 
Tam worth,  consisting  of  forested  roadside  strips 
known  as  the  ''Chocorua  Pines."  The  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club  had  many  holdings,  including  the 
following:  one  acre  at  the  Madison  Spring  on  Mount 
Madison,  thirty-six  acres  along  Snyder  Brook  in 
Randolph,  thirty-seven  acres  at  the  Lead  Mine 
Bridge  in  Shelburne,  the  Joseph  Story  Fay  Reserva- 
tion of  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres  in  Woodstock 
and  Lincoln,  ten  acres  on  the  summit  of  South 
Baldface  Mountain  and  ten  acres  on  the  summit  of 
Mount  Kearsarge  (Pequawket),  both  in  the  town  of 

403 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

Chatham,  twenty-eight  acres  at  the  Glen  Ellis  Falls, 
and  twenty-eight  acres  at  the  Crystal  Cascade,  both 
in  the  Pinkham  Notch  region.  All  honor  to  those 
organizations  and  individuals  to  whose  advocacy 
and  persistent  activity  this  happy  condition  of 
things  is  due ! 


XIX 

THE   CHANGES  IN  THE  CHARACTER  OF  WHITE 

MOUNTAIN  TRAVEL  AND  BUSINESS  IN 

RECENT  YEARS 

The  advent  of  the  automobile,  with  its  almost 
immediate  leap  into  general  use  for  touring,  greatly 
to  the  regret  of  many,  including  some  landlords,  has 
largely  transformed  in  character  the  summer  hotel 
and  tourist  business  in  the  White  Mountains,  as 
well  as  elsewhere.  While  the  volume  of  travel  has 
increased,  the  majority  of  the  visitors  to  the  region 
are  now  of  the  transient  variety,  making  in  most 
cases  but  a  fleeting  stay  at  any  one  place  and  con- 
sisting largely  of  those  who  are  "doing"  the  Moun- 
tains in  their  "motor-car."  Many  of  these  make 
only  a  rapid  passage  through  the  region  on  some  of 
the  main  lines  of  travel,  such  as  that  from  Plymouth 
through  the  Franconia  Notch  to  Bretton  Woods, 
and  thence  on  through  the  Crawford  Notch,  pausing 
not  much  longer  at  various  favored  stopping-places 
than  the  time  required  to  consume  one  of  the  hos- 
telry's famous  meals,  or  at  most  to  spend  a  night. 
As  a  result,  some  of  the  capacious  and  luxurious 
houses  of  entertainment  at  strategic  points  on  the 
approved  and  well-advertised  automobile  routes  are 
now  doing  a  highly  profitable  business  in  catering  to 
the  wants  of  patrons  of  this  sort.  Some  tourists 
make  their  headquarters  at  a  central  point  and  from 

405 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

there  tour  in  their  machines  to  the  various  points  of 
interest  about  the  Mountains,  but,  even  in  these 
cases,  the  length  of  sojourn  is  usually  comparatively 
short.  On  the  other  hand,  resorts  not  on  these 
favored  routes  have  suffered  in  the  amount  of  their 
patronage  on  account  of  this  change  in  the  purpose 
of  the  summer  visitors,  not  only  because  they  fail  to 
receive  their  share  of  these  migratory  sojourners,  but 
because  some  of  their  old-time  permanent  clientele 
are  now  numbered  among  that  class.  The  railroads 
serving  the  region  also  have  suffered  a  considerable 
loss  in  the  volume  of  passenger  traffic,  owing  to  this 
change  from  the  use  of  public  to  that  of  private 
conveyances,  which  is  somewhat  of  a  reversion  in 
type  of  travel  to  the  conditions  of  pre-railroad  days. 
While,  as  has  been  intimated,  there  are  many  real 
lovers  of  the  Mountains  who  regret  the  passing  of 
the  old  order,  with  its  simplicity  and  restfulness, 
and  its  more  leisurely  ways  of  seeing  the  country, 
by  walks  or  delightful  drives  after  two,  four,  or  more 
horses  in  the  old-fashioned  mountain-wagons  of  a 
bygone  day,  there  are  others  who  feel  differently 
about  it.  Writes  Ralph  D.  Paine  in  Scribner's  Maga- 
zine, in  describing  the  pleasures  of  automobiling  in 
the  White  Hills:  — 

In  other  days  many  of  the  finest  views  of  this  beautiful 
region  were  denied  the  visitor  unless  he  tramped  it  with  a 
pack  on  his  back.  Now  the  hillsides  have  been  blasted  and 
the  gullies  filled  to  make  it  no  more  than  a  flight  of  a  few 
hours  from  the  Franconia  gateway,  across  the  mountains 
and  out  through  Crawford  Notch  to  the  highway  that 
leads  southward  through  North  Conway  and  Intervale. 

406 


CHANGES  IN  TRAVEL  AND  BUSINESS 

Gone  is  the  old  simplicity  and  quiet  summer  life  of 
Fabyan's  and  Bethlehem  and  Crawford's,  when  the  same 
guests  returned  year  after  year  for  the  same  placid  exist- 
ence, the  young  people  at  tennis  and  walking  tours,  their 
elders  gossiping  in  rocking-chairs  along  the  hospitable 
piazzas.  Nor  is  it  to  regret  the  passing  of  the  old  order  of 
things.  Where  one  pilgrim  discovered  the  White  Moun- 
tains then,  a  hundred  enjoy  them  now.  The  region  has 
ceased  to  be  a  New  England  monopoly  and  is  a  national 
possession.  At  Bretton  Woods  and  its  vast  hotel  seventy 
per  cent  of  last  summer's  [1912's]  guests  were  motorists. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  opinion  in  gen- 
eral, and  while  it  is  a  cause  of  gratification  that  many 
more  people  are  enabled  to  enjoy  the  Mountains, 
even  though  they  may  gain  only  fleeting  glimpses  of 
their  beauties,  it  must  be  said  that  the  statement  in 
the  first  sentence  of  the  quotation  is  almost  as  true 
to-day  as  "in  other  days."  For,  owing  to  the  physi- 
cal character  of  the  country,  "many  of  the  finest 
views"  are  still  and  must  be  ever  reserved  for  him 
who  knows  the  real  "joys  of  the  road,"  the  pedes- 
trian with  or  without  the  pack  on  his  back.  Nature 
has  forever  established  as  impassable  to  vehicles 
many  routes  of  the  region  and  has  placed  many  of 
its  chief  attractions  in  spots  inaccessible  to  any  but 
the  foot  traveler.  So  the  saunterer  who  keeps  off  the 
beaten  track  may  still  enjoy  to  the  utmost  the  de- 
lights of  the  woods,  the  ravines,  and  the  trails.  He 
will  always  hold  in  fee  simple  the  right  to  enjoy  not 
only  very  many  of  the  most  charming  and  of  the 
grandest  prospects,  as  has  been  said,  but  numbers 
also  of  the  special  wonders  and  beauties  of  various 
localities. 

407 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS 

It  may  well  be  that  when  this  often  mad  rush  to 
get  somewhere  and  this  desire  to  "do"  the  White 
Mountains  as  a  part  of  a  motor  tour  shall  have  spent 
their  novel  force,  a  reaction  will  set  in,  and  the  old- 
time  placid  sojourn  in  a  particular  resort  —  there 
are  still  many  people  who  cling  to  the  milder  form 
of  summer  pleasure  —  will  be  again  in  fashion.  In 
any  case,  there  is  room  enough  for  both  classes  of 
visitors  and  each  type  may,  if  it  will  but  seek  it,  find 
a  place  to  its  liking. 

Another  change  in  White  Mountain  business 
which  has  arisen  in  late  years  and  which  deserves 
notice  in  this  concluding  chapter  is  the  development 
of  the  region  as  a  winter  resort.  In  earlier  days  few 
urban  residents  other  than  hardy  members  of  the 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club  ever  thought  of  ven- 
turing, let  alone  actually  going,  into  the  White  Hills 
for  a  winter  pleasure  trip.  In  those  bygone  days  at 
that  season  the  Mountains  were  almost  as  deserted 
and  solitary  as  the  Himalayas  themselves,  and  even 
the  aforesaid  pioneers  in  what  was  destined  to  be 
an  epoch-making  movement  in  vacationing  were 
regarded  as  overenthusiastic  for  outdoor  life,  if  not 
more  or  less  foolhardy,  in  betaking  themselves  in 
winter  to  this  land  of  ice  and  snow,  where  they  might 
be  at  the  mercy  of  blizzards,  avalanches,  and  other 
terrors,  real  or  supposed,  of  winter  life  in  high  alti- 
tudes. So  the  Appalachians  not  only  had  a  monop- 
oly of  winter  pastiming  there,  but  were  often  hard 
put  to  it  to  find  accommodations  other  than  those 
furnished  by  the  Club  shelters.  Gradually,  how- 
ever, the  number  of  the  "snowshoe  section"  of  the 

408 


CHANGES  IN  TRAVEL  AND  BUSINESS 

Club  increased,  the  newspapers  and  magazines 
began  to  take  knowledge  of  these  romantic  excur- 
sions to  the  snow-covered  solitudes  of  the  Granite 
State,  and  at  length  the  railroad  companies,  needing 
only  the  pioneer  work  of  a  widely  known  outdoor 
organization  to  build  upon,  took  up  the  matter  of 
providing  facilities  for  such  expeditions  in  a  system- 
atic way,  and  the  winter  vacation  in  the  north 
country  became  an  accomplished  fact.  Meanwhile, 
a  few  of  the  more  enterprising  proprietors  of  White 
Mountain  summer  hotels  discerned  the  drift  of 
things  and  tried  the  experiment  of  keeping  open  in 
winter  also.  The  new  idea  that  a  winter  vacation 
could  be  enjoyed,  with  the  comforts  of  a  modern 
hotel,  in  cold  New  England  as  well  as  in  warm 
Florida  or  California,  immediately  found  favor 
with  the  public ;  and  now,  where  a  decade  or  so  ago, 
there  were  but  three  or  four  hostelries  prepared  to 
entertain  winter  guests  and  few  sojourners  at  that 
season  in  the  White  Hills,  there  are  a  dozen  or 
more  hotels  catering  to  the  demands  of  this  class  of 
patrons,  who  are  numbered  by  the  hundreds. 


THE  END 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Thomas,  159. 

Abnaki,  group  of  Indians,  2. 

Abnakis,  at  St.  Francis,  9. 

Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences, 
American,  32. 

Adams,  Mount,  named,  78;  Phil- 
lips Brooks  on,  135;  first  path, 

'  345;  Air  Line  Path,  356;  provi- 
sions for  records  on,  358. 

Adams,  Mount  John  Quincy,  275. 

Adams,  town.  See  Jackson,  59. 

Addey,  Markinfiield,  254. 

Addison,  Daniel  Dulany,  182. 

Agamenticus,  Mount,  5. 

Agassiz,  Alexander,  217. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  his  explorations, 
215;  Mount  Agassiz,  216:  Ag- 
assiz Basins,  216;  poem  on,  216. 

Agassiz,  Mount,  named,  216; 
coach  overturned,  332. 

Agassiz  Basins,  216. 

Agiocochook  or  Agiochook,  xxix; 
legend  of  origin,  13. 

Aiken,  Charles  L.,  318. 

Aiken,  Herrick,  239. 

Aiken,  James,  64. 

Aiken,  Walter,  and  the  Mount 
Washington  Railway,  239;  sec- 
ond Summit  House,  246;  on 
Mount  Washington  in  winter, 
318. 

Air  Line  Path,  356. 

Albany,  town,  dying  of  cattle  in, 
13;  forest  purchase  in,  398. 

"Album"  of  landlord,  107,  146. 

Alden,  Reverend  Timothy,  xxx. 

Aldrich,  Eva  M.,  169. 

Algonquin  family  of  Indians,  2. 

Allen,  Dr.  A.  V.  G.,  137. 

Allen,  Charles,  277. 

Allen,  David,  96. 

Allen,  Grant,  248. 

Alpine  House  (Gorham),  170. 

"Ambitious  Guest,  The,"  86, 116. 


American  Foresters,  Society  of, 

its  Bibliography,  xiv. 
American  Forestry   Association, 

391. 
American  Hay-Fever  Association, 

333- 
American  Philosophical  Society, 

29. 
Ames,  Moses,  40. 
Ames's  Tavern,  179. 
Amherst,  General  Jeffrey,  54. 
Amherst  College,  120,  208,  310; 

students  find  Harry  Hunter's 

body,  273. 
Ammonoosuc  gold  field,  209,  210. 
Among  the  Clouds,  xiii,  xv;  housed 

in  old    Tip-Top    House,  233; 

"newspaper  train,"  245;  office 

built,  251;  history,  251-53. 
"Among  the  Hills,"  179. 
Anasagunticooks,  the,  2. 
Anchors,  made  at  Tamworth  Iron 

Works,  69. 
Anderson,  John,  338,  356,  373, 

,  374.  375. 

Anderson,  John  Farwell,  227. 

Anderson,  General  Samuel  J.,  227. 

Anderson  and  Price,  338. 

Androscoggin,  the,  xxxi. 

Aneda,  19. 

Appalachia,  founded,  359;  first 
editor,  218,  359. 

Appalachian  Mountain  Club,  the. 
Guide,  xiii;  summit  of  Mount 
Kearsarge  given  to,  255;  and 
snow  arch,  274;  shelter  on 
Crawford  Path,  279,  354;  win- 
ter ascents,  305;  and  various 
paths,  346,  347,  348;  founded, 
348,  349;  incorporated  and  vol- 
untary association  dissolved, 
350;  its  work  and  activities, 
350-57.  358,  359;  advocates 
Crawford  Notch  purchase,  402; 


411 


INDEX 


its  reservations,  403,  404;  win- 
ter expeditions,  408. 

Applebee,  Zebedee,  58. 

Apthorp.   See  Littleton. 

Arosagunticooks,  the,  2. 

Art  history  of  White  Mountains, 
188. 

Artists'  Brook,  199. 

Ascents,  registration  of,  31,  37, 

84.  357.  358. 

Aspinquid,  St.,  5. 

Asquamchemauke,  48. 

Atkinson,  Theodore,  52. 

Atlantic  and  St.  Lawrence  Rail- 
road, 220,  221. 

Atwood,  Mrs.,  233. 

Auger,  screw-,  first,  69. 

Austin,  the  Misses,  79. 

Automobiles,  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 371,  372;  on  Tug-of-War 
Hill,  372;  405-08. 

Avery,  James,  57. 

Ayres,  Philip  W.,  400. 

Baedeker,  Karl,  xiii. 
Baird,  George  C.,  363,  364. 
Baker,  Captain,  of  Newbury,  his 

expedition  against  Pemigewas- 

set  Indians,  48. 
Bakers  River,  48. 
Balaam,  the  Indian,  8. 
Baldwin,  Loammi,  jr.,  222. 
Ball,  Dr.  B.  L.,  285-301. 
Ball,  Dr.  S.,  300,  301. 
Ballard,    Rev.    Edward,    as    to 

meaning  of  Agiocochook,  xxx. 
Ballou,    2d,     Dr.     Hosea,     128; 

quoted  as  to  hotels  existing  in 

1845,  165. 
Banks's  Hotel,  179. 
Barker,  John,  at  Notch  (Willey) 

House,  92,  93. 
Barnes,  Dr.  H.,  301. 
Barnum,  P.  T.,  248. 
Barron,  Asa,  335,  337. 
Barron,  Colonel  Oscar  G.,  335, 

337;  and  Mount  Washington 

fire,  362. 
Barron,     Merrill,     and     Barron 

(Company),       and       Summit 

House,  249;  firm  formed,  335; 
,    Mount  Pleasant  House,  338. 


Barrows,  Dr.  Nathan,  211. 

Barstow,  George,  6. 

Bartlett,  early  citizens,  52;  set- 
tled, 60;  forest  purchase  in, 
398. 

Bartlett, ,  collegian,  28. 

Bartlett,  W.  H.,  196. 

Base  of  Mount  Washington,  the, 
railroad  extended  to,  225;  turn- 
pike to,  238,  241;  Among  the 
Clouds  at,  253. 

Bass,  Governor  Robert  P.,  403. 

Bates,  Charlotte  Fiske,  216. 

Bean,  David,  67, 

Bean  Grant,  399. 

Bearcamp  River  House,  Whittier 
first  comes  to,  179;  frequents, 
180;  burned,  i8i. 

Beaumont,  £lie  de,  205,  215. 

Beaver  Meadow,  140. 

Beckett,  S.  B.,  120,  121. 

Bedell,  A.  Judson,  230. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  his  con- 
nection with  White  Mountains, 
127,  131-33.  335;  at  Crawford 
House,  131,  163;  on  Mount 
Washington,  248. 

Beede,  Daniel,  67. 

Belknap,  Jeremy,  his  History  of 
New  Hampshire,  xxv;  quoted, 
XXV,  xxvii;  Agiocochook,  xxix; 
quoted,  2,  3;  map,  10,  31 ;  Great 
Carbuncle,  15;  records  ex- 
plorations, 24,  25;  quoted,  25; 
on  Crawford  Notch,  25;  tour  of 
White  Mountains,  27  ff. ;  unable 
to  climb  Mount  Washington, 
30;  battle  of  Lovewell's  Pond, 
44,  45;  motive  for  visiting 
Mountains,  154. 

Bellows,  John,  170. 

Bemis,  Dr.  Samuel  A.,  his  con- 
nection with  White  Mountains, 
137.  138;  and  G.  N.  Franken- 
stein, 203. 

Bemis  station,  55,  73,  346. 

Benedict,  J.  St.  J.,  400. 

Benjamin,  S.  G.  W.,  on  S.  R. 
Gifford's  painting,  198;  on 
Thomas  Hill's  painting,  200. 

Bent,  Allen  H.,  quoted,  ix;  his 
bibliography,  ix,  xiv. 


412 


INDEX 


Berlin,  N.H.,  granted,  59;  Lucy 
Larcom  at,  183;  railroad 
reaches,  226;  sawmills  at,  379; 
forest  fire,  382;  destructive 
lumbering,  385. 

Berlin  Falls.   See  Berlin. 

Bernard,  Sir  Francis,  58. 

Bethel,  Maine,  Indian  raid,  65; 
Lucy  Larcom  at,  183,  184. 

Bethlehem,  President  Dwight 
visits,  35;  granted  and  settled, 
60;  President  Dwight  on,  6i; 
early  history,  61 ;  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau  quoted  on,  146;  first 
taverns,  161 ;  Lucy  Larcom  at, 
184;  William  Dean  Howells  at, 
184;  Agassiz  describes  mo- 
raines at,  215;  railroad  to,  225; 
General  Grant  at,  243;  coach- 
ing parades,  245;  White  Moun- 
tain Echo,  254;  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton Gay,  262;  development  of 
as  a  resort,  332-34. 

Bierstadt,  Albert,  202. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  Jacob,  31;  explores 
White  Mountains,  35,  36;  his 
account  of  the  Mountains,  37. 

Bigelow's  Lawn,  37. 

"Billings,  Josh,"  341. 

Black  flies,  Josselyn  on,  24. 

Blaikie,  William  Garden,  248. 

Blanchard,  Joseph,  48. 

Boardman,  artist,  202. 

Bolles,  Frank,  natural  history, 
218;  summer  home,  69. 

Bond,  Professor  G.  P.,  map,  19, 
212. 

Boott,  Dr.  Francis,  with  Dr.  Big- 
elow, 36;  explores  the  Moun- 
tains again,  37. 

Boott  Spur,  22,  31,  36,  37. 

Boott  Spur  Trail,  356. 

Boston,  England,  20. 

Boston  and  Lowell  Railroad,  222. 

Boston  and  Maine  Railroad,  223, 
225,  226,  228,  241,  375. 

Boston  Athenaeum,  198. 

Boston,  Concord  and   Montreal 

.  Railroad  reaches  Plymouth,  50; 
leased  to  the  Boston  and  Low- 
ell, 50 ;  early  history,  223, 
224. 


Botany  and  botanical  explora- 
tions, 32,  33,  35,  37,  38,  108, 
121,  124,  147,  218. 

Boulder  in  Flume,  303. 

Bourne,  George  W.,  270,  271. 

Bourne,  Lizzie  C.,  269h-7i. 

Bourne,  Lucy,  270,  271. 

Bouton,  Nathaniel,  6. 

Bowditch,  Dr.  Nathaniel,  33. 

Brackett,  Adino  N.,  77,  78. 

Brackett,  W.  M.,  202. 

Bracy,  C.  F.,  317. 

Brass  plate  placed  on  Mt.  Wash- 
ington, 84. 

Brazer,  John,  83. 

Bremer,  Fredrika,  her  visit  to 
the  White  Mountains,  148, 149. 

Bretton  Woods,  xxviii,  63,  140, 

191.  337.  343.  344- 

Brewster,  Edwin  Tenney,  206. 

Bridge,  W.  F.,  102. 

Bridle  path,  Crawford,  made,  77. 
See  Crawford  Path. 

Bridle  path,  Fabyan,  made,  78. 
See  also  Fabyan  Path. 

Briggs,  Fire  Warden,  282,  283. 

British  Embassy  at  Intervale, 
372. 

"Briton's  Woods."  See  Bretton 
Woods. 

Brooks,  Chapin  C,  307-09. 

Brooks,  Rev.  Frederick,  136. 

Brooks,  Luke,  loi. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  his  connection 
with  the  White  Mountains, 
127.  133-37;  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 248. 

Brooks,  William  G.,  134. 

Brown,  George  Loring,  at  West 
Campton,  66;  at  West  Ossipee, 
179;  at  Jackson  and  Jefferson 
Highlands,  195;  his  most  noted 
White  Mountain  picture,  195. 

Brown,  George  T.,  168. 

Brown,  H.  B.,  203. 

Browne,  George  Waldo,  175. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  his  con^ 
nection  with  the  Mountains, 
186-88;  impressions  of, 
quoted,  187-88. 

Bryce,  Ambassador  James,  372. 

Buckler,  Reginald  H.,  284. 


413 


INDEX 


Bucknam,  Edward,  57/ 

Burnham,  Denison  R.,  173. 

Burnham,  Senator  Heiiry  E.,  391. 

Burns,  Major,  60. 

Burt,  Frank  H.,  his  chronology, 
xiii;  his  Mount  Washington, 
xiii;  his  Among  the  White 
Mountains,  cited,  55;  editor  of 

'  Among  the  Clouds,  252 ;  lays  out 
path  from  snow  arch  to  Sum- 
mit, 347. 

Burt,  Henry  M.,  252. 

Burt,  Joseph,  61. 

Butterwort  Flume,  213. 

Cabot,  Sebastian,  map,  18. 

Camden,  Patrick,  369. 

Camp,  Ethan  Allen  Crawford's, 

destroyed,  98. 
Campbell,  friend  of  Chocorua,  11, 

12. 
Campbell  and  Whittier,  239. 
Campton,  grant  and  settlement, 

65,     66;     Whittier     at,     178; 

Fieldses  at,  178,  183;  Lucy  Lar- 

com  at,  183;  artists  at,  66,  203. 
Campton  Village,  66. 
Cannon,  Speaker  Joseph  G.,  248, 

394- 

Cannon,  Mount,  102,  104. 

Carriage  road  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 234-36;  243. 

Carrigain,  Mount,  18;  Guyot  as- 
cends, 217;  ascent  by  Vose  and 
Morse,  348;  by  White  Moun- 
tain Club,  348,  349. 

Carrigain,  Philip,  map,  xxxii,  18; 
secretary  of  state,  xxxii,  19; 
ascends  Mount  Washington, 
78;  Mount  Lafayette  on  his 
map,  106., 

Carroll,  63. 

Carter  Dome,  302,  353. 

Carter  Notch  Hut,  352,  353. 

Cartland,  Gertrude  W.,  181. 

Cartland,  Joseph,  181. 

Cascade  Camp,  355. 

Casilear,  J.  W.,  196,  197,  199. 

Casola,  103, 

Castellated  Ridge,  356. 

Caswell,  Captain  Nathan,  57. 

Caswell,  Apthorp,  57. 


Cavis,  C.  H.  v.,  232,  235. 

Center  Sandwich,  68. 

Central  Vermont  Railroad,  223. 

Century  Club,  199. 

Chamberlain,  Allen,  400. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  19. 

Champney,  Benjamin,  at  West 
Ossipee,  179;  life  and  work  at 
North  Conway,  195-99. 

Chandler,  Benjamin,  271,  272. 

Chandler,  Moses,  255. 

Chandler  Ridge,  272. 

Charlestown,  N.H.,  54. 

Chatauque,  159. 

Cheney,  Charles  B.,  317,  319. 

Cherry  Mountain,  26;  slide,  304. 

Child,  Lydia  Maria,  Chocorua's 
Curse,  II,  12. 

Chisholm's  Guide-Book,  xiii. 

Chiswick.  See  Littleton,  61. 

Chittenden,  Alfred  K.,  388. 

Choate,  Jonathan,  68. 

Choate,  Rufus,  158. 

Chocorua,  chieftain,  4,  10;  legend 
of,  II,  12;  Longfellow's  poem, 
12,  186;  other  poems,  12. 

Chocorua,  mountain,  10,  67,  179; 
Whittier's  opinion  of,  180; 
Whittier's  and  Lucy  Larcom's 
humorous  poems  on  climbing, 
181;  Thomas  Cole  and,  191, 
193;  A.  B.  Durand,  195;  John 
Williamson,  197;  A.  D.  Shat- 
tuck,  198;  J.  W.  Casilear,  199; 
Daniel  Huntington,  201;  Wil- 
liam Hart,  203;  in  second  geo- 
logical survey,  210;  Peak 
House,  255. 

Chocorua,  village,  68. 

Chocorua  Lake,  69. 

Chocorua  Pines,  403. 

Christall  hill  or  hills.  See  Crystal 
hill. 

"Christus  Judex,"  103. 

Church,  F.  E.,  203. 

Church's  Falls,  203. 

Civil  War,  66,  68. 

Clark,  artist,  202. 

Clay,  Mrs.  C.  E.,  255. 

Clay,  Mount,  named,  37. 

Clement,  Daniel  Q.,  257. 

Clement,  Ezekiel  A.,  257. 


414 


INDEX 


Clement,  James,  256,  257,  312, 

Cleveland,  Grover,  at  Tamworth, 
69. 

Cliff  House,  159. 

"  Climbs  to  the  Clouds,"  371, 372. 

Clough,  A.  F.,  winter  on  Mount 
Moosilauke,  210,  311-14;  win- 
ter on  Mount  Washington,  316, 
318,  319- 

Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey,  U.S., 
250. 

Cobb,  J.  O.,  348. 

Coffin,  Ira,  168. 

Cogswell,  P.  B.,  318. 

Coke,  E.  T.,  quoted,  81;  his  visit 
to  the  Mountains,  143-45. 

Cold  weather  in  June,  76. 

Cole,  Thomas,  painting  of  death 
of  Chocorua,  11,  193;  at  Jack- 
son, 172;  connection  with 
Mountains,  190-93. 

Colebrook,  70. 

Coleridge,  Lord  Chief  Justice, 
248. 

Colman,  Samuel,  198. 

Concord,  State  capital,  61;  first 
railroad  train,  222. 

Concord.  See  Lisbon. 

Concord  Railroad,  222. 

Concord  and  Montreal  Railroad, 

367. 

Cone,  Sergeant  O.  S.  M.,  326. 

Connecticut,  the,  xxxi,  399. 

Connecticut  and  Passumpsic 
Rivers  Railroad,  223,  226. 

Connecticut  River  Railroad,  226. 

Conrad,  Justus,  on  Woodstock, 
63;  on  discovery  of  the  Profile 
and  the  Flume,  102. 

Conway,  Henry  Seymour,  50. 

Conway,  Indian  remains,  3;  Bel- 
knap's party  at,  29;  Bigelow's 
party  at,  37;  settled,  50;  origin 
of  name,  50;  history,  50^.; 
hotels  at,  159  ff.;  and  Portland 
and  Ogdensburg  Railroad,  227; 
Eastern  Railroad  reaches,  228; 
lumbering  at,  378.  See  also 
North  Conway. 

Conway  Corner,  159. 

Cook,  E.  B.,  356. 

Cooper,  Rev.  Charles  D.,  134. 


Cooper,  J.  M.,  55. 

Coos,  Upper,  64;  Rosebrook  in, 
70. 

Coosucs,  the,  2. 

Copp,  Benjamin,  59. 

Copp,  Joshua,  64. 

Corcoran  Gallery  of  Art,  199. 

Courthouse,  first,  at  Plymouth, 
49. 

"Cow  Pasture,"  232. 

Cox,  Edmund,  243. 

Cram,  Captain  T.  J.,  ascertains 
height  of  Mount  Washington, 
217. 

Crandall,  Governor,  9. 

Crawford,  Abel,  lives  in  Nash  and 
Sawyer's  Location,  72;  moves 
to  Hart's  Location,  72,  73; 
keeps  inn  there,  73,  158;  acts  as 
guide,  83,  84,  206;  character- 
ized, 84;  makes  first  horseback 
ascent  of  Mount  Washington, 
84,  206;  vigorous  old  age,  85; 
death,  85;  and  Samuel  Willey, 
Jr.,  91;  effect  of  storm  on  his 
property,  97;  portrait,  202. 

Crawford,  Ethan  Allen,  autobiog- 
raphy, xiv;  on  story  of  Nancy, 
56;  cares  for  grandfather  and 
inherits  latter's  property,  75; 
physique,  75;  burial  place,  75; 
soldier,  76;  instance  of  his 
strength,  76;  Louisville,  New 
York,  76;  comes  to  grandfath- 
er's, 76,  77;  house  burned,  77, 
157;  first  path,  77;  guide,  77  jf-; 
builds  shorter  path,  78;  stone 
cabins,  79,  229;  tent,  229;  en- 
larges house,  79,  157;  again,  80, 
157;  annoyed  by  neighboring 
landlord,  80, 165;  leaves  Moun- 
tains and  moves  to  Guildhall, 
82,  163;  returns  to  Mountains, 
82,  166;  dies,  83;  age,  83;  epi- 
taph, 83;  Willey  disaster,  87; 
date  of  Willey  House,  89; 
storm  of  August  (1826),  92; 
searcher  at  Willey  House,  95; 
effect  of  storm  on  his  property, 
98;  guides  Western  travelers, 
99;  accounts  of  visitors,  107; 
Chancellor  Kent,  107;  and  bo- 


415 


INDEX 


tanist,  io8;  Hawthorne  at  his 
house,  115,  116;  Emerson  there, 
119;  Harriet  Martineau  and, 
145;  carries  mail,  160;  builds 
Notch  House,  162;  notice  of 
painter,  190;  makes  provision 
for  records  of  ascents,  357. 

Crawford,  E.  A.,  3d,  330,  375. 

Crawford,  Lucy  Howe,  her  His- 
tory of  the  White  Mountains, 
xiii,  74;  cares  for  Eleazar  Rose- 
brook  in  his  last  illness,  75; 
burial  place,  83. 

Crawford,  Stephen  M.,  376. 

Crawford,  Thomas  J.,  makes 
bridle  path,  77;  keeps  Notch 
House,  85,  162;  builds  road  up 
Mount  Willard,  85;  guides 
Western  travelers,  99,  100; 
names  Mount  Willard?,  113; 
builds  first  Crawford  House, 
162;  and  Nazro,  261;  and 
Frederick  Strickland,  268,  269. 

Crawford,  William  H.,  330. 

Crawford  family,  in  White  Moun- 
tain history,  70;  work  in  devel- 
oping Mountain  travel,  155, 
156. 

Crawford  House,  Beecherat,  131; 
first   one   built,    162;   burned, 

,    163;  present  one  built,  163. 

Crawford  Notch,  known  to  In- 
dians, 25;  made  known  to  colo- 
nists, 25,  26;  road,  25,  26,  27; 
turnpike,  27,  73;  President 
Dwight,  34,  35;  Colonel  Whip- 
ple, 52;  Rogers's  Rangers,  54; 
Nancy,  55,  56;  name,  75;  Wil- 
ley  disaster,  85;  turnpike  de- 
stroyed and  rebuilt,  97;  Profes- 
sor Silliman,  108,  109;  Haw- 
thorne, 1 15, 1 16;  E.  A.  Kendall, 
139;  Henry  Tudor,  141;  E.  T. 
Coke,  144;  traffic  through,  156; 
Thomas  Cole,  191;  Thomas 
Doughty,  194;  Benjamin 
Champney,  197;  H.  B.  Brown, 
203;  explorations,  213;  railroad 
through,  227;  State  reserve, 
401-03. 

Crawford  Notch  Hermit,  263. 

Crawford  Notch  Reserve,  401-03. 


Crawford  Path,  built,  77;  made 
bridle  path,  77;  shelter,  279, 

354. 
Cruft,  Isaac  S.,  334. 
Crystal  Cascade  Path,  347,  355. 
Crystal  hill  or  hills,  xxv,  19,  20. 
Cummings,  G.  E.,  225. 
Currier,     Representative    Frank 

Dm  391.  393- 
Curtis,  William  B.,  275-79. 
Cushman,  Nathaniel,  62. 
Cutler,  Reverend  Dr.  Manasseh, 

first  visit  and  results,  28,  31, 32; 

second  visit,  33;  motive,  154. 
Cutler's  River,  31. 
Cutter,  Louis  F.,  277. 

Dalton,  town,  57. 

Dalton,  Honorable  Tristram,  57. 

Dana,  Professor  J.  D.,  213. 

Danas,  the,  47. 

Danforth,  Rev.  Samuel,  Almanac, 

20. 
Darby  Field,  the,  283,  284. 
Dartmouth  (Jefferson),  29, 31,  52. 
Dartmouth    College,    105,    209, 

211,  212,  213. 
Dartmouth  Outing  Club,  305. 
Davis,  D.  S.,  230. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  232. 
Davis,  John  C,  255. 
Davis,  Jonathan  G.,  355. 
Davis,   Nathaniel  T.   P.,   keeps 

Mount    Crawford    House,    73, 

158;  loses  property,  137. 
Davis  Path,  346. 
Dawson,  George,  83. 
Deer  Park  Hotel,  342. 
Deluge  tradition,  14. 
Demerit,  Eli,  62. 
Demerit,  John,  62. 
Dennison,  Noyes  S.,  77. 
Devens,  Charles,  248. 
Devil's  Den,  on  Mount  Willard, 

described,    218;    explored    by 

Dartmouth  men,  213,  219;  by 

F.  Leavitt,  219. 
Dinsmore,  Andrew,  255. 
Dodge,  Harriet  D.,  249. 
Dodge,  Captain  John  W.,  249. 
Dodge,  Joseph  A.,  257. 
Dog,  the  Willey,  92. 


416 


INDEX 


Dolfinato,  Nicolo  del,  map,  i8. 

Doughty,  Thomas,  190,  194. 

Douglass,  William,  quoted,  xxvi. 

Dover,  N.H.,  Indian  attack  on,  9. 

Dow,  Colonel  Stevens  M.,  257. 

Downes,  William  Howe,  ix. 

Doyle,  Private,  323,  324.  ^ 

Drake,  Samuel  Adams,  his  Heart 
of  the    White   Mountains,   xii; 

[  quoted  on  name  of  Mountains, 
xxvi;  on  Agiocochook,  xxix;  on 
Wautnbekketmethna,  xxx;  as  to 
train-shed  and  Private  Doyle's 
experiences,  322. 

Dry  River,  15,  22. 

Duhring,  Mrs.,  232. 

Dunstable  (Nashua),  42,  43,  46. 

Durand,  A.  B.,  at  West  Camp- 
ton,  66,  203;  at  Jackson,  172; 
connection  with  White  Moun- 
tains, 194,  195,  196. 

Durand,  John,  63. 

Durand,  town.   See  Randolph, 

Durgin,  Mr.,  proprietor  of  Sinclair 
House,  315. 

Durgin,  Mrs.  Charles,  330. 

Dwight,  Theodore,  Jr.,  on  Craw- 
ford Notch  road,  27;  tour  to 
Mountains,  no;  notices  of 
them,  no,  in;  ascent  of 
Mount  Washington,  112. 

Dwight,  President  Timothy 
(1752-18 1 7),  his  Travels  in  New 
England  and  New  York,  xi;  on 
visibility  of  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 19;  his  journeys  to  the 
White  Mountains,  33,  34,  35; 
to  Lake  Winnepesaukee,  34; 
quoted  as  to  Bethlehem,  61; 
on  the  character  and  achieve- 
ments of  Eleazar  Rosebrook, 
74;  his  name  for  Mount  La- 
fayette, 106;  motive  for  visit- 
ing Mountains,  154. 

East  Branch  House,  158. 
Eastern  Railroad,  228. 
Eastman,  Amos,  captured,  49. 
Eastman,  Daniel,  159. 
Eastman,  Lewis,  198. 
Eastman,  Mrs.  M.  E.,  159. 
Eastman,  Moses,  161. 


Eastman,  Richard,  78. 

Eastman,  William,  68. 

Eaton,  J.  F.,  352. 

Echo  Lake,  David  Johnson's  pic- 
ture, 197;  Sanford  R.  Gilford's 
picture,  198. 

Eamands,  Professor  J.  Rayner, 
searches  for  remains  of  Weiss, 
275;  King's  Ravine  Path,  346; 
builds  camps  and  trails,  355; 
builds  Valley  Way,  356;  opens 
Mount  Pleasant  Path,  356. 

Edward  VH,  195. 

Eliot,  John,  and  Passaconaway, 
6,  8;  and  Wonnalancet,  9. 

Ellis,  George  B.,  194. 

Ellis,  George  E.,  36. 

Ellis  River,  31. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  his  con- 
nection with  the  White  Moun- 
tains, 118-20;  on  Thoreau's 
injury,  124. 

Emerton,  J.  H.,  scientific  work, 
218;  on  Mount  Washington, 
247. 

Emery, ,  settler,  60. 

Emmons,  Charles  G.,  249. 

English  Jack,  263-66. 

Estus,  Timothy,  233. 

Evans,  Captain,  builds  road 
through  Crawford  Notch,  25; 
ascends  Mount  Washington 
twice,  25, 120;  guides  Belknap's 
party,  29,  31. 

Evans,  David,  40. 

Evans,  John,  40. 

Evarts,  William  M.,  248. 

Everett,  Edward,  158. 

Fabyan,  Abbott  L.,  338. 

Fabyan,  Horace,  makes  bridle 
path,  78;  comes  to  White 
Mountains,  82,  163;  repairs  old 
Willey  House  and  builds  new 
one,  164;  keeps  Conway  House, 
164;  keeps  Mount  Washington 
House,  164;  his  tin  horn,  164; 
remodels  hotel,  165;  and  Fred- 
erick Strickland,  269;  hotel 
called  after,  336. 

Fabyan,  White  Mountains  Rail- 
road reaches,  225;  Portland  and 


417 


INDEX 


Ogdensburg  Railroad  reaches, 
227;  Maine  Central  Railroad 
extended  from,  228;  connected 
with  Base  by  turnpike,  238, 
241. 

Fabyan  House,  336,  337;  Mount 
Washington  fire  discovered  at, 
362. 

Fabyan  Path,  78,  356, 

Fairfield.   See  Woodstock. 

Fall  of  a  Thousand  Streams,  121. 

Fassett,  F.  H.,  339. 

Faunce,  Sewall  E.,  273,  274. 

Faxon,  Edward,  247. 

Fay,  Professor  Charles  E.,  349. 

Fenollosa,  W.  S.,  346. 

Ferrin's  Pond,  loi. 

Field,  Darby,  and  Crystal  Hills, 
xxv;  nationality  of,  20;  resi- 
dence of,  20;  explores  Moun- 
tains, 20;  ascends  Mount 
Washington,  20,  21 ;  account  of 
riches  found,  22. 

Field,  General  Martin,  103. 

Field  meetings  of  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club,  351. 

Field  Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory, 239. 

Fields,  Annie,  66,  178. 

Fields,  James  T.,  66,  175,  178. 

Fires,  47,  77,  157,  163,  165,  171, 
172,  173,  174,  181,  336,  338, 
339.  340,  360-64,  369,  370. 

Fisher,  Dr.  Joshua,  28,  30. 

FHnt,  William  F.,  214. 

Flume,  the,  Justus  Conrad  on 
discovery  of,  102;  discovery  of, 
105;  Harry  Hibbard  describes, 
105,  106;  Harriet  Martineau 
visits,  146;  boulder  carried 
away,  303. 

Flume  House,  Hon.  Amelia  Ma- 
tilda Murray  at,  151;  early 
history,  167;  burned,  168; 
present  one  erected,  168,  341. 

Forest  fires,  381-83. 

Foster,  Daniel,  50,  52. 

Foster,  John,  map,  18. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  poem  on 
Chocorua,  12;  poetry,  175. 

Fox,  Daniel,  60. 

Fox  family,  Campton,  66. 


Franconia,  •  settlement  and  his- 
tory, 58. 

"Franconia  Mountain  Notch," 
poem,  105. 

Franconia  Notch,  road  destroyed 
in  1826,  97;  road  building,  loi; 
earliest  printed  description, 
106;  Hawthorne,  ii5;Thoreau, 
122;  Parkman,  126;  Starr  King, 
130;  E.  T.  Coke,  145;  Harriet 
Martineau,  146;  Sir  Charles 
Lyell,  148;  Fredrika  Bremer, 
148;  Bryant,  187;  Thomas  Cole, 
191-92;  hotels,  166-69,  34i~42; 
National  Forest  purchases  in, 

399- 
Franconia    Range,   shelter,   354; 
path,    356;    forests    acquired, 

397.  399. 

Frankenstein,  G.  N.,  38;  pictures, 
203. 

Frankenstein  CliflF,  15,  38,  203. 

Frankenstein  Trestle,  38,  227. 

Franklin,  Mount,  named,  78. 

Freeman,  Colonel  Orville  E.,  240. 

Freeman,  Mrs.  Orville  E.,  330. 

French,  Mr.,  landlord  of  Fabyan 
House,  337. 

Fresh  Air  Club,  276,  279, 

Frothingham,  Richard,  quoted, 
128,  129,  130. 

Frye,  Caleb,  255. 

Frye,  Chaplain  Jonathan,  46. 

Frye,  General  Joseph,  39,  51. 

Frye,  Joseph,  Jr.,  40. 

Frye,  Nathaniel,  40. 

Frye,  Nathaniel  (fl.  1848),  255. 

Fryeburg,  Maine,  Indian  remains, 
3;  Indian  village,  3;  early  his- 
tory, 39^.;  fire,  47;  and  Con- 
way, 51,  52;  settlers  flee  to,  65; 
Whittier,  178;  Lovewell's  Fight 
commemorated,  186. 

Gallinger,  Senator  Jacob  H.,  390, 

391,  396. 
Garfield,  Mount,  lake,  212;  path, 

356;  named,  356;  fire,  382. 
Gate  of  the  Notch,  35,  89,  263, 

372. 
Gay,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  262. 
Gay,  W.  A.,  66,  198,  203. 


418 


INDEX 


Geary,  artist,  202. 

Geological  Survey  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, first,  204-08;  second, 
208-14. 

Geological  Survey,  U.S.,  396,  397. 

Geology,  xxiii,  147,  204-15. 

"Geology  of  New  Hampshire, 
The,"  214. 

Gerry,  S.  L.,  66,  202,  203. 

"Giant  of  the  Hills,"  75. 

Giant's  Grave,  tradition  con- 
nected with,  14;  first  hotel  at, 
73;  burned,  77;  second,  77,  79, 
80;  echo  at,  164;  leveled,  336. 

Gibb,  J.  L.,  162,  163,  167. 

Gibson,  W.  Hamilton,  his  illus- 
trations, xii. 

Gifford,  Charles  Ailing,  343. 

Gifford,  Sandford  R.,  198, 200,201. 

Gile,  Dr.,  of  Hanover,  281. 

Gile,  R.  T.,  374. 

Gilead,  Maine,  Indian  raid,  65. 

Gilman,  Samuel,  Jr.,  67. 

Glen,  the,  hotels  in,  170-71, 
338-40. 

Glen  Boulder  Trail,  356. 

Glen  Ellis  Falls,  30,  357,  404. 

Glen  Ellis  House,  172. 

Glen  House,  first  one  built,  170; 
J.  M.  Thompson,  proprietor, 
171;  Millikens,  171,  338;  Dr. 
Ball  at,  287,  300,  301;  era  of 
prosperity,  338;  burned,  338, 
339;  second  one  opened,  339; 
completed,  340;  burned,  340; 
stables,  340;  present  house, 
340;  "Josh  Billings"  at  first 
house,  341 ;  Mount  Washington 
fire  discovered  at,  363;  salute  at 
opening  of  new  Summit  House, 
369. 

Glines,  Israel,  53. 

Glines,  John,    53. 

Goffe,  Colonel,  52. 

Gookin,  General,  8. 

Gordon  trail,  345. 

Gorges,  Thomas,  22,  120. 

Gorham,  Maine,  25. 

Gorham,  N.H.,  65;  Starr  King  at, 
130;  hotels  at,  169,  170;  rail- 
road reaches,  22 1 ;  present  Bos- 
ton and  Maine  railroad,  226. 


Grand  Pierre,  Emile,  217. 

Grand  Trunk  Railway,  221. 

Grant,  S.  Hastings,  217. 

Grant,  General  Ulysses  S.,  visits 
Mount  Washington,  242;  coach 
ride,  243;  Twin  Mountain 
House,  335. 

Gray,  Asa,  memoir  of  Oakes,  37; 
accompanies  Professor  Tuck- 
erman,  121;  and  Honorable 
Amelia  Matilda  Murray,  150. 

Gray,  Francis  C,  36. 

Gray's  Inn,  172,  173. 

Great  Carbuncle,  legend  of,  15, 
116. 

Great  Gulf,  crossed  by  Dr.  Rob- 
bins,  108;  path  into,  347. 

"Great  Stone  Face,  The,"  103, 
116,  117,  149. 

Greeley,  Deacon,  of  Boston,  199, 

Greeley,  Horace,  232. 

Greene,  Benjamin  D.,  108. 

Greenleaf,  Abbie  Burnham  (Mrs. 
C.  H.),  169,  173. 

Greenleaf,  Colonel  C.  H.,  166, 
167. 

Griffith,  George  Bancroft,  175. 

Griggs,  artist,  66,  203. 

Groveton,  railroad  reaches,  225. 

Guernsey,  Mrs.  Jessie,  105. 

Guernsey  farm,  106. 

Guildhall,  Vermont,  Rosebrooks 
at,  72;  birthplace  of  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford,  75;  Crawford 
lives  at,  82. 

Gunthwaite.  See  Lisbon. 

Guyot,  Arnold,  explores  the 
Mountains,  216,  217. 

Guyot,  Mount,  217. 

Gyles,  John,  quoted,  xxix. 

Hadley,  Philip,  257. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  member 
of  first  geological  survey,  207; 
at  house  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 207,  230;  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club,  351;  and 
national  forest,  388. 

Halfway  House,  on  carriage  road, 
235,  243,  244. 

Hall,  Dr.  A.  B.,  286. 

Hall,  Dr.  Edward  Hagaman,  17. 


419 


INDEX 


Hall,  Joseph  S.,  in  Tuckerman's 
Ravine,  121;  builds  first  Sum- 
mit House,  230;  contractor  on 
carriage  road,  236;  and  Dr. 
Ball,  .298,  299,  301. 

Hall,  Judge  Obed,  inn,  93,  158; 
characterized,  158. 

Hanover,  35,  209,  316. 

Harding,  Chester,  202. 

"Hark  Hill,"  65. 

Harkness,  Harry  S.,  371. 

Harriman,  Governor,  208,  384. 

Harriman,  Mr.,  settler,  60. 

Hart,  Warren  W.,  on  Darby 
Field,  20;  reopens  Davis  Path, 

346. 
Hart,  William,  203. 
Hart's  Location,  73,  76. 
Hartshorn,  Lucius,  305-07. 
Hartshorn,  Mrs.  Lucius,  231. 
Harvard  College,  39. 
Harvey,  James  C,  277. 
Hatch,  George  W.,  engraving,  11, 

193. 

Havell,  F.  J.,  194. 

Haverhill,  N.H.,  71. 

Haverhill  and  Franconia  Iron 
Works,  The,  59. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  his  Great 
Carbuncle,  15;  Ambitious  Guest, 
86;  Great  Stone  Face,  103;  his 
relation  to  the  White  Moun- 
tains, ii3Jf.;  his  visits,  114, 
115,  117;  death,  114,  118,  174; 
on  the  early  inns,  157. 

Hayes,  Mount,  134. 

Hayes,  President  Rutherford  B., 
248. 

Haystack,  Great,  106. 

Haystack  Lake,  212. 

Hazard,  Ebenezer,  28,  30. 

Heard,  Mr.,  28. 

Hearne,  Sergeant  M.  L.,  326,  327. 

Henry,  Professor  Joseph,  310. 

Hermit  Lake,  121. 

Hermit  of  the  White  Mountains, 
263. 

Hibbard,  Harry,  poet,  105. 

Higginson,  Colonel  Thomas 
Wentworth,  258. 

Hill,  Henry,  89,  158. 

Hill,  Thomas,  painter,  200. 


Hill,  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas,  president 
of  Harvard  College,  212. 

Hill,  W.  P.,  164. 

Hilliard,  W.  M.,  372. 

Hitchcock,  Charles  H.,  on  per- 
manency of  the  Profile,  105;  as 
to  name  of  Mounts  Webster 
and  Willard,  113;  appointed 
State  Geologist,  208;  conducts 
second  geological  survey,  209- 
14;  on  Devil's  Den,  219;  and 
winter  occupation  of  Mount 
Washington,  2,10  ff. 

Hitchcock,  President  Edward, 
208. 

Hitchcock,  E.,  Jr.,  211. 

Hitchcock,  Colonel  John  R.,  hotel 
proprietor,  170;  lessee  of  old 
Tip-Top  and  Summit  Houses, 
232;  house  on  Mount  Moriah, 
255;  and  winter  occupation  of 
Mount  Washington,  311,  314. 

Hitchcock  Flume,  213. 

Hoar,  Senator  George  F.,  390.     j 

Hobart,  Captain  James,  48. 

Hoit,  A.  G.,  202. 

Hoit,  Benjamin,  66. 

Holden,  L.  L.  ("Ranger"),  318, 
358. 

Holland,  Bert,  372. 

Holland,  Samuel,  map,  18,  60. 

Holmes,  Christopher,  65. 

Holyoke,  Mount,  144. 

Hooker,  General  Joseph,  248. 

Home,  Superintendent  John,  362, 
363. 

Hotels,  first  at  "Giant's  Grave," 
built,  73,  157;  burned,  77,  157; 
second,  77,  79,  80;  early,  154- 
74;  later,  331-44- 

House  that  Jack  Built,  263. 

Howard,  Governor  Henry,  332, 

334- 
Howells,  William  Dean,  47,  184. 

Hubbard,  ,  collegian,  28. 

Hubbard,  Oliver  P.,  M.D.,  214. 
Hubbard,  R.  W.,  198. 
Hubbard,  William,  his  History  of 

New    England,    xxv;     Indian 

Wars,  6,  18. 
Hudson  River  School  of  artists, 

189,  190,  194,  199. 


420 


INDEX 


Humboldt,  Alexander  von, 
quoted,  x. 

Hunter,  legend  of,  and  church  of 
St.  Francis,  54. 

Hunter,  Harry  W.,  272,  273. 

Huntington,  Daniel,  201. 

Huntington,  J.  H.,  assistant  on 
second  geological  survey,  209- 
13;  winter  on  Mount  Moosi- 
lauke,  210,  311-14;  "Scenery  of 
Coos  County,"  214;  winter 
on  Mount  Washington,  3i6jf.; 
his  winter  ascents,  316,  318, 
319.  330;  ascends  by  Davis 
Path,  346. 

Huntington's  Ravine,  317. 

Hutchinson,  Thomas,  58. 

Indian  Island,  3. 

Indian  remains,  I,  2,  3,  48,  52, 
64. 

Indians  of  the  White  Mountam 
region,  I,  2;  their  fear  of  the 
mountain  summits,  13,  21;  ac- 
company Darby  Field,  20,  21; 
Col.  Whipple's  adventure  with, 
53;  Mrs.  Rosebrook's  adven- 
ture with,  72. 

Ingelow,  Jean,  183. 

Inness,  George,  at  West  Ossipee, 
179,  200;  at  North  Conway, 
200. 

Intervale,  Whittier  at,  181;  junc- 
tion point,  228;  British  Em- 
bassy at,  372;  forest  reserva- 
tion meeting,  388. 

Iron  Mountain  House,  171. 

Iron  works  in  Franconia,  58,  59; 
in  Tamworth,  68. 

Irving,  Washington,  visits  White 
Mountains,  142,  143. 

Island  Pond,  Vermont,  220,  221. 

Israel's  River,  53,  54, 

Jackman,  Richard,  68, 

Jackman,  Royal  C,  373. 

Jackson,  29,  31;  settlement,  59; 
becomes  a  summer  resort,  171; 
hotels  at,  171-73;  artists  at, 
171,  202;  first  winter  meeting  of 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club, 
351- 


Jackson,  Dr.  Charles  T.,  and  first 
Geological  Survey  of  New 
Hampshire,  205-07,  208. 

Jackson,  Mount,  named,  37. 

Jackson-Carter  Notch  Path,  355. 

Jackson  Falls  House,  171. 

Jacob's  Ladder,  241,  244. 

James,  Professor  William,  69. 

Jefferson,  29,  35;  settlement  and 
history,  52  Jf. 

JefTerson,  Mount,  named,  78; 
Phillips  Brooks,  135;  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  207;   Dr.  Ball, 

295.  297. 

Jefferson,  President  Thomas,  loi. 

Jefferson  Highlands,  195,  375, 
376. 

Jefferson  Notch  Road,  374-76. 

Jenkins,  an  English  trader,  mur- 
dered, 6. 

Jenks,  Edward  Augustus,  175. 

Jewell,  Sergeant  W.  S.,  326. 

Jillson,  Stephen,  63. 

Jilly,  Paul,  60. 

John  Anderson  Memorial  Road, 

373.  374- 
John's  River,  53. 
Johnson,  David,  197. 
Jordan,    Governor    Chester    B., 

376. 
Joseph  Story  Fay  Reservation, 

403- 
Josselyn,  John,  New  England  s 
Rarities  Discovered,  xxvi,  xxvii; 
Account  of  Two  Voyages  to  New 
England,  14;  explores  Moun- 
tains, 23;  description,  23,  24. 

Kan  Ran  Vugarty,  xxxi. 

Kancamagus,  Indian  sachem,  9, 
10. 

Kearsarge,  Mount,  186,  210; 
houses  on,  254,  255. 

Kearsarge  House,  built,  160. 

Kearsarge  Tavern,  159,  160,  196, 
197,  198. 

Keenan,  John  M.,  279-84. 

Keenan,  Lawrence  J.,  283. 

Kellogg,  Stanley  T.,  372. 

Kendall,  Edward  Augustus,  his 
Travels,  xxvii,  139;  his  discus- 
sion of  the  name  White  Moun- 


421 


INDEX 


tains,  XXV,  xxvi;  quoted  as  to 
Willey  House,  89;  his  tour  of 
the  Mountains,  139;  on  place 
names,  140. 

Kennebec,  river,  19. 

Kensett,  J.  F.,  196,  197,  199. 

Kent,  Chancellor  James,  107, 

Kent,  Judge  William,  107. 

Key,  D.  M.,  248. 

Kilburn,  Benjamin  W.,  318,  327, 
328,  329. 

Kilkenny,  382. 

Kimball,  H.  A.,  316-18. 

King,  Reverend  Thomas  Starr, 
his  The  White  Hills,  xi;  quoted 
as  to  Indian  legend,  3;  Love- 
well's  Pond,  47 ;  stature  of  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford,  75;  Mount 
Monadnock,  120;  Professor 
Tuckerman,  121;  his  connec- 
tion with  the  White  Mountains, 
127,  128-31;  his  book  pub- 
lished, 130;  Richard  Frothing- 
ham  on  the  book,  130;  at  West 
Ossipee,  179;  and  Dr.  Ball,  286. 

King  Philip's  War,  5,  9. 

King's  Ravine,  130;  path,  346. 

Kinsman,  Mount,  213. 

Knight,  Captain  Artemas,  58. 

Knight's  Tavern,  166. 

Lafayette,  Mount,  named,  106; 
early  ascents,  106;  Thoreau 
ascends,  124;  railroad  charter, 
238;  house  on,  255;  fire,  382. 

Lafayette  House,  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau  at,  146;  Fredrika  Bre- 
mer at,  149;  J.  L.  Gibb,  162; 
built,  167;  acquired  by  Richard 
Taft,  168. 

Lakeman,  Dr.  Mary  R.,  330. 

Lakes  of  the  Clouds  Hut,  353, 354. 

Lancaster,  N.H.,  settlement,  56, 
57;  railroad  reaches,  225. 

Landslides,  92,  94,  100,  302-04. 

Lane,  George  W.,  236. 

Langdon,  Reverend  Samuel,  63. 

Lanman,  Charles,  166. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  at  Campton,  66; 
at  Center  Sandwich,  68;  and 
Whittier,  176;  assists  Whittier, 
181,   182;   Whittier  befriends. 


182;  her  connection  with  the 
White  Mountains,  183-85;  on 
Mount  Washington,  247. 

Latrobe,  Charles  Joseph,  visit  to 
White  Mountains,  141-43. 

Laurentian  Mountains,  xxix. 

Lead  plate,  left  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 31. 

Leavitt,  F.,  219. 

Leavitt,  John  T.  G.,  337. 

Lebanon,  N.H.,  223. 

Ledge,  the,  on  east  side  of  Mount 
Washington,  235;  Dr.  Ball  at, 
288,  289,  299. 

Lesley,  Professor  J.  P.,  214. 

Lever,  Representative  Asbury  P., 
393- 

Levett,  Christopher,  his  Voyage 
into  New  England,  xxv;  his 
mention  of  the  Mountains, 
xxiii;  sees  Passaconaway,  5; 
voyage  to  New  England,  19; 
quoted,  19. 

Lewis,  Samuel,  map,  xxiv. 

Libby,  E.,  &  Sons  Company,  363. 

Lightfoot,  chauffeur,  283,  284. 

Lindsey,  John,  337. 

Line,  Sergeant  William,  328,  329. 

Lisbon,  iron  ore,  58 ;  granted  and 
settled,  61,  62;  discovery  of 
gold  in,  62;  Ammonoosuc  gold 
field,  209,  210. 

Little,  Reverend  Daniel,  27,  28. 

Little,  Henry,  108. 

Little,  Colonel  Moses,  57. 

Little,  William,  his  History  of 
Warren,  quoted  from,  6;  pub- 
lished, 64;  landlord  of  Prospect 
House,  257;  and  winter  occupa- 
tion of  Mount  Moosilauke,  311. 

Littleton,  settlement,  57;  railroad 
reaches,  223,  224. 

Lloyd  Hills,  60. 

Log  Cabin,  the,  355. 

Lok,  Michael,  map,  18. 

Lonesome  Lake,  102. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  poem  on 
Chocorua,  12,  186;  poems  on 
battle  of  Lovewell's  Pond,  46, 
185,  186;  in  White  Mountains, 
114;  association  with  Moun- 
tains, 185-86. 


422 


INDEX 


••  Lord's  Hill,"  60. 

Lost  River,  372,  373. 

Lovewell,  Captain  John,  his  ex- 
peditions against  the  Indians, 
43;  battle  at  Lovewell's  Pond, 
44,  45;  death,  45. 

Lovewell's  Pond,  battle,  42,  44- 
46;  ballad,  46;  Daniel  Webster, 
47;  Whittier,  178;  Longfellow's 
poems,  185,  186. 

Low,  A.  A.,  194. 

Lowe,  Charles  E.,  searches  for 
remains  of  Weiss,  275;  builds 
Lowe's  Path,  345,  346. 

Lowe's  King's  Ravine  Path,  346. 

Lowe's  Path,  3^5,  346;  Appala- 
chian Mountam  Club,  355. 

Lower  Bartlett,  159. 

Lumbering,  378-79. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  his  visit  to  the 
White  Mountains,  146-48. 

Lyon,  John  E.,  Boston,  Concord, 
and  Montreal  Railroad,  224; 
second  Summit  House,  246; 
Moosilauke  Mountain  Road 
Company,  257. 

McClellan,  General  George  B., 

102,  248. 
McMillan,  Colonel  Andrew,  159. 
McMillan  House,  159. 
McNeill,  William  Gibbs,  222. 
McNorton,  James,  63. 
Macomber,   General   David   O., 

235.  314- 

Mad  River,  185. 

Madison,  Mount,  named,  78; 
Phillips  Brooks  on,  135;  Osgood 
Path,  347;  huts,  351,  352;  reg- 
ister placed,  358. 

Madison  Hut,  built,  351,  352; 
enlarged,  352;  second  hut,  352. 

Maine  Central  Railroad,  227, 228. 

Man  at  the  Pool,  261, 

Maplewood  Farm,  334. 

Maplewood  Hotel,  334. 

Maps,  18-19,  208,  209,  210,  214, 

367- 
March,  Colonel,  41. 
Marsh,  David  G.,  257. 
Marsh,    Sylvester,    his    services, 

237 ;  conceives  idea  of  mountain 


railway,  237;  invents  mechan- 
ism, 237;  applies  for  a  charter, 
239;  begins  construction,  239; 
designs  first  locomotive,  239; 
later  life,  241;  quoted  as  to 
Rigi  railway,  242;  gives  per- 
mission for  use  of  train  shed  in 
winter,  314;  and  Fabyan  House, 
336. 

Martin,  Homer,  201. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  her  visit  to 
the  White  Mountains,  145-46; 
as  to  building  of  Lafayette 
House,  167. 

Mason,  Mrs.  Ellen  McRoberts, 
50,  159,  227,  255. 

Massachusetts,  and  Passacona- 
way,  6,  8;  bounty  for  Indian 
scalps,  12,  41,  42;  punitive 
measures  against  Indians,  41; 
and  White  Mountain  Reserve, 

390- 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 

Collections,  xxx,  28. 
Mayne,    Edward,    Robert,    and 

Thomas,  59. 
Mayne,  Sir  William,  59. 
Maynesborough.  See  Berlin. 
Medford  (dog),  325,  328. 
Mellen,  Grenville,  84,  158. 
Memphremagog,  Lake,  54. 
Mercator,  Gerhard,  map,  18. 
Merrill,  C.  H.,  335,  375. 
Merrill,  G.  S.,  202. 
Merrill,  John,  261,  262. 
Merrill,  Jonathan,  310. 
Merrill's  Mountain  House,  257. 
Merrimac,  the,  xxxi,  2. 
Metropolitan    Museum    of    Art, 

201. 
Milliken,  Charles  R.,  338. 
Milliken,  Weston  F.  338. 
Mills,  John,  64. 
Mitchell,  James  E.,  263. 
Model  of  White  Mountain  region, 

212. 
Monadnock  (Colebrook),  71. 
Monadnock,  Mount,  and  Emer- 
son, 120. 
Monroe,  Mount,  named,  78. 
Montalban  Ridge,  276,  346,  398, 

399- 


423 


INDEX 


Monument  at  Willey  site,  rock, 
86;  board,  89,  95;  Rosebrook, 
73;  Crawford,  83. 

Moody,  Josiah,  60. 

Moose  Hillock  or  Moosehillock. 
See  Moosilauke. 

Moosilauke,  Mount,  as  view- 
point, 64;  E.  A.  Kendall  on 
name,  140;  Lucy  Larcom,  184; 
first  climbed,  255;  Tip-Top 
House,  256,  258;  account  of 
ascent  by  Captain  Partridge, 
256;  winter  occupation  of,  311- 
14;  forests  acquired,  397. 

Moosilauke  Mountain  Road 
Company,  257. 

Morey,  George  W.,  138. 

Moriah,  Mount,  255. 

Morris,  Honorable  Corbyn,  58. 

Morristown.  See  Franconia. 

Morse,  G.  F.,  348. 

Motor  cycle,  372. 

Moulton,  Jonathan,  68. 

Mounds,  Indian,  3. 

Mount  Clinton  Road,  375. 

Mount  Crawford  House,  built, 
73,  88,  89;  later  history,  158. 

Mount  Lafayette  House,  north  of 
Profile  House,  169. 

Mount  Lafayette  House,  south  of 
Profile  House,  168,  169. 

Mount  Madison  House,  170. 

Mount  Pleasant  House,  337,  338. 

Mount  Pleasant  Path,  356. 

Mount  Washington  Carriage 
Road,  234-36;  accident  on,  243. 

Mount  Washington  Hotel  (Bret- 
ton  Woods),  343-44,  376. 

Mount  Washington  Hotel  Com- 
pany (Fabyan  House),  336. 

Mount  Washington  House  (at 
Fabyan),  Horace  Fabyan  keeps, 
164;  remodeled,  165;  burned, 
163,  165,  336;  stables  de- 
stroyed, 336. 

Mount  Washington  Railway, 
John  E.  Lyon  and,  224;  history, 
237-42;  empty  train  wrecked, 
244;  slide-boards,  244-46. 

Mount  Washington  River,  15,  22, 

Mount  Washington  Road  Com- 
pany, 235. 


Mount  Washington  Summit  Road 
Company,  236. 

Mount  Whittier.  See  West 
Ossipee. 

Mountain  Coliseum,  121. 

Mountain  View  House  (White- 
field),  342. 

Mularvey,  Michael,  318,  319. 

Murphy,  D.  C,  326. 

Murray,  Honorable  Amelia  Ma- 
tilda, her  visit  to  the  White 
Mountains,  150-52. 

Musgrove,  Eugene  R.,  his  an- 
thology, 175;  on  Whittier  as 
poet  of  the  Mountains,  176. 

Myer,  General  A.  B.,  315. 

Myers,  J.  D.,  contractor  on  car- 
riage road,  235;  and  Bourne 
party,  270;  and  Dr.  Ball,  288, 
289,  299. 

Nails,  machine-made,  first,  69. 

Nancy,  story  of,  55,  56;  Mount, 
55;  her  surname,  55. 

Nancy's  Bridge,  55. 

Nancy's  Brook,  55. 

Nash,  Timothy,  discovers  Craw- 
ford Notch,  26. 

Nash  and  Sawyer's  Location,  26, 
70. 

Nashua  and  Lowell  Railroad,  222. 

Nashua  and  Worcester  Railroad, 
222. 

National  Forest,  388-401. 

National  Forest  Reservation 
Commission,  composition,  396; 
action  in  19 14,  398;  approves 
further  appropriations,  401. 

Nazro,  John  Coffin,  259-61. 

Nelson,  S.  A.,  raises  fund  for 
winter  occupation  of  Mount 
Washington,  315;  a  member  of 
party,  316;  stay  on  Mountain, 
318,  320. 

New  Hampshire,  separate  colony, 
42;  poets,  175;  first  geological 
survey,  204-08;  second,  208- 
14;  railroads,  222-28;  lumber- 
ing and  other  wood  industries, 
378-80;  forest  fire  protection, 
382,  383;  ownership  of  forests, 
384;  and  national  forest,  388- 


424 


INDEX 


89;  Crawford  Notch  purchase, 
401-03. 

New  Hampshire  Forestry  Com- 
mission, 403. 

New  Hampshire  Forests,  Society 
for  the  Protection  of,  acquires 
Lost  River  tract,  373;  work  for 
fire  protection,  383;  advocates 
forest  reservation,  387,  388; 
400;  Crawford  Notch  Reserve, 
401 ;  its  reservations,  403. 

New  Hampshire  Iron  Factory 
Company,  58. 

New  Madbury,  59. 

New  River,  32. 

New  York  Historical  Society 
Gallery,  193. 

New  York  Public  Library  Galler- 
ies, 194,  199,  201. 

Newell,  L.  B.,  318. 

"Newspaper  train"  on  Mount 
Washington  Railway,  245. 

Nichols,  Rev.  Dr.  Harry  P.,  visi- 
tor to  Mount  Washington,  247; 
ascent  on  June  30, 1900,  276;  at 
opening  of  present  Summit 
House,  369;  accompanies  Am- 
bassador Bryce,  372. 

Nickerson,  David,  96. 

North  Conway,  settled,  52;  Du- 
rand  at,  194;  Champney  and, 
195-99;  various  artists  at,  196 
ff.;  Portland  and  Ogdensburg 
Railroad  reaches,  227;  coach- 
ing parades,  245;  first  field 
meetmg  of  Appalachian  Moun- 
tain Club,  351. 

North  Stratford,  228. 

North  Woodstock,  reiilroad 
reaches,  226. 

Northern  Peaks,  named,  78; 
Phillips  Brooks,  134;  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  207;  first  paths, 
345;  first  camp,  346;  Madison 
Hut,  351;  private  camps,  355; 
forests,  397,  398. 

Northern  Railroad  of  New  Hamp)- 
shire,  223, 

Northumberland,  71. 

Norumbega,  18. 

Norwich,  and  Worcester  Railroad, 


Notch  House  (near  Gate  of 
Notch),  85,  122,  126,  129;  ori- 
gin, 161;  built,  162;  Thomas  J. 
Crawford  keeps,  162;  repair^ 
and  burned,  163. 

Notch  House  (Willey  House). 
See  Willey  House. 

Notch  Mountain,  1 13. 

Nowell,  William  G.,  Lowe's  Path, 
345;  builds  first  camp,  346;  Log 
Cabin,  355;  trail  to  Castellated 
Ridge,  356;  puts  A.  M.  C.  reg- 
ister on  Mount  Adams,  358. 

Noyes,  Nathaniel,  231. 

Number  Four  (fort),  54. 

Nuttall,  Thomas,  108. 

Nutter,  Mr.,  of  Lancaster,  319. 

Oakes,  William,  his  Scenery  of  the 
White  Mountains,  xi,  38;  Cut- 
ler's collection,  32;  botanical 
explorations,  37,  38;  memoir. 
37;  collects  plants,  108;  Mount 
Webster,  113;  Sir  Charles 
Lyell,  147;  Flume  House,  167. 

Oakes  Gulf,  38. 

Observatory,  first,  233,  234; 
second,  250,  251. 

"Old  Man  of  the  Mountain." 
See  Profile. 

"Old  Man  of  the  Mountain," 
railroad  engine,  224. 

Ordway,  Alfred,  197. 

Ormsbee,  Allan,  275-79. 

Osgood,  Benjamin,  innkeeper,  159. 

Osgood,  Benjamin  F.,  Bierstadt, 
202;  winter  ascent  of  Mount 
Washington,  306-07;  builds 
paths,  247;  places  a  roll  for 
records  on  Mount  Adams,  358. 

Osgood,  Samuel,  40. 

Osgood  Path,  347,  348. 

Osgoods,  the,  47. 

Ossipee,  town,  Indian  remains,  3. 

Ossipee  Pond  or  Lake,  44,  69. 

Ossipee  Range,  68,  129,  182. 

Ossipees,  Indian  sub-tribe,  2. 

Oxford  Hotel,  at  Fryeburg, 
burned,  47. 

Packard,  Alpheus  S.,  214. 
Packard,  Winthrop,  218. 


425 


INDEX 


Page,  David,  400. 

Page,  Captain  David,  57. 

Page,  Jeremiah,  67. 

Page,  John,  64. 

Page,  Governor  John,  204,  205. 

Page,  Samuel  B.,  257. 

Paine,  Ralph  D.,  quoted,  406-07. 

Parker,  Herschel  C.,  277. 

Parker,  Walter,  277. 

Parker,  Lieutenant  Zachariah,  48. 

Parkman,  Francis,  in  White 
Mountains,  124-27;  exploit  at 
Willey  slide,  127;  on  preserva- 
tion of  forests,  386. 

Parsons,  Colonel  Charles,  230. 

Parsons,  Thomas,  W.,  87. 

Partridge,  Captain  Alden,  256. 

Pascataquack,  20. 

Passaconaway,  chieftain,  4-8. 

Passaconaway,  mountain,  67, 
210. 

Patch,  Mrs.  Daniel,  256. 

Patch,  Joseph,  64. 

Path,  first  up  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 77;  second,  78. 

"Patriarch  of  the  Mountains," 

73,  84. 
Paugus,  Indian  sachem,  45. 
Pawtucket  Falls,  6. 
Peak  House  (Mount  Chocorua), 

255- 

Peaked  Hill.  See  Agassiz,  Mount. 

Pearson,  Samuel  A.,  77. 

Peary,  Lieutenant  (now  Admiral) 
R.  E.,  248. 

Peck,  Dr.  W.  D.,  33,  37. 

Peek,  W.  H.,  356. 

Peeling.  See  Woodstock. 

Pegwagget.  See  Pequawket. 

Pemigewasset  House,  118,  173, 
174. 

Pemigewasset  River,  48,  387. 

Pemigewassets,  the,  retire  to 
Canada,  49;  home,  64, 

Pendexter, ,  moves  into  Wil- 
ley House,  100. 

Pendexter,  Honorable  John,  158. 

Pendexter  Mansion,  158. 

"Pennacook,"  quoted,  223. 

Pennacooks,  the,  2,  4,  5,  9,  10. 

Pequawket,  Indian  village,  3,  40, 
42,43- 


Pequawket,  Mount,  254.  See 
Kearsarge,  Mount. 

Pequawket  House,  159. 

Pequawkets,  the,  2,  11,  12,  41. 

Perch  Camp,  355. 

Perkins,  Nathan  R.,  230,  231. 

Philbrick,  David,  68. 

Photography  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 327,  328. 

Pickard,  Samuel  T.,  180,  182. 

Pickering,  Dr.  Charles,  38. 

Pickering,  E.  C,  on  Mount 
Washington,  247;  founder  and 
first  president  of  Appalachian 
Mountain  Club,  349. 

Pickering,  W.  H.,  247;  on  Davis 
Path,  346. 

Picket  Hill.   See  Agassiz,  Mount. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  117,  118,  158. 

Pigwackets.  See  Pequawkets. 

Pingree,  David,  260. 

Pinkham,  Captain  Joseph,  59. 

Pinkham  Notch,  59. 

Piscataqua,  river,  5,  20. 

Pitman  Hall,  159. 

Plato,  a  colored  man,  65. 

Playfair,  Sir  Lyon,  248. 

Pleasant,  Mount,  named,  78; 
sHdes  on,  100. 

Plummer,  Joseph,  161. 

Plymouth,  President  Dwight,  34; 
settled,  48;  history,  49,  50; 
hotels  at,  173,  174;  railroad 
reaches,  224. 

"Plymouth  buck  gloves,"  50. 

Pone,  artist,  203. 

Pool,  the,  Man  at,  261. 

Poole,  Fanny  Runnells,  175. 

Poor,  Peter,  65. 

Portland,  Maine,  19,  34,  47;  the 
Atlantic  and  St.  Lawrence 
Railroad,  220,  221;  connected 
with  Montreal  by  rail,  221; 
Portland  and  Ogdensburg  Rail- 
road, 227. 

Portland  and  Ogdensburg  Rail- 
road, 227,  228;  effect  on  travel, 
331 ;  completed  to  Fabyan,  336. 

Portsmouth,  N.H.,  17. 

Potter,  Chandler  E.,  his  History 
of  Manchester,  quoted  from,  7, 
9,  10. 


426 


INDEX 


Potter,  Bishop  Henry  C,  136. 

Pourtales,  Count  de,  142. 

Pratt,  Henry  Cheeves,  191,  194. 

Prescott,  John,  67. 

Presidential  Range,  xxiii,  xxix; 
chief  peak  named,  32,  33;  other 
peaks  named,  78;  traversed  by 
Dr.  Robbins,  108;  casualties 
on,  267-84;  Dr.  Ball,  284-301; 
paths  on  345-56;  forests  ac- 
quired, 397,  398,  399. 

Prime,  Dr.  William  C,  on  the 
discovery  of  the  Profile,  101, 
102;  his  camp  at  Lonesome 
Lake,  102;  description  of  the 
Profile,  104;  on  Richard  Taft, 
167;  and  Mount  Lafayette 
House,  169;  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 247. 

Prince  of  Wales  (Edward  VH) ,  195. 

Procter,  George  C,  318. 

Proctor,  Edna  Dean,  uses  Agio- 
chook,  XXX ;  her  poetry,  175. 

Profile,  Mount,  104. 

Profile,  the,  discovery  of,  loi, 
102;  existence  made  known, 
103;  Dr.  Prime  describes,  104; 
measurements  of,  105,  213; 
Professor  C.  H.  Hitchcock  on 
its  permanency,  105;  Haw- 
thorne's story,  116;  E.  T.  Coke 
on,  145;  Fredrika  Bremer  on, 
149;  Hon.  Amelia  Matilda 
Murray,  151;  Thomas  Cole  on, 
192;  David  Johnson's  picture, 
197;  S.  L.  Gerry's  picture,  202. 

Profile  and  Franconia  Notch 
Railroad,  225. 

Profile  House,  Hon.  Amelia  Ma- 
tilda Murray  at,  151 ;  built  and 
opened,  168;  enlarged,  168; 
first  cottage  at,  168;  railroad  to, 
225;  General  Grant  at,  243; 
character  of  hotel,  341;  torn 
down,  342;  New  Profile  House 
built  and  opened,  342. 

Profile  Lake,  loi,  104,  151. 

Prospect  House.  See  Tip-Top 
House  on  Mount  Moosilauke. 

Pursh,  Frederick,  "Flora  of 
North  America,"  33.  ^ 

Putnam,  G.  F.,  257. 


Quebec  Junction,  228. 
Quinebequy,  19. 

Railway,  up  Mount  Washington, 
237-42;  scenic,  366. 

Randolph,  settlement,  63;  rail- 
road, 226. 

"  Ranger."     See  Holden,  L.  L. 

Ranney,  Mrs.  V.  G.,  poem  on 
Chocorua,  12. 

Raymond,  Major  Curtis  B.,  347. 

Raymond  Path,  347. 

Records  of  ascent,  31,  37,  84; 
history  of  provision  for,  357- 
58. 

Red  Hill  (in  Moultonborough), 
President  Dwight  ascends,  34; 
Professor  SiUiman,  108;  Tho- 
reau,  123;  Starr  King,  129;  Har- 
riet Martineau,  145;  Hon. 
Amelia  Matilda  Murray,  151; 
location  and  view,  151. 

Reservations,  Appalachian  Moun- 
tain Club,  357;  403-04. 

Revolutionary  War,  53,  57,  63, 
66,  67;  Rosebrook  in,  71,  72. 

Riant,  John,  62. 

Ribero,  map,  18. 

Rich,  John  P.,  235,  236. 

Richards,  Reverend  Charles  A.  L., 

133.  136,  137- 
Richards,  T.  Addison,  at  West 

Campton,  66,  203. 
Richards,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  R.,  247. 
Ricker,  engineer  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington carriage  road,  235. 
Ricker,  Mrs.  L.  J.,  160. 
Riggenbach,  Nicholas,  242. 
Rigi  railway  in  Switzerland,  242. 
Rindge,  Captain,  65. 
Ripley,  Henry  Wheelock,  130. 
Riverside  Cottage,  184. 
Road  through  Crawford  Notch, 

25,  26,  27,  87. 
Robbins,  Dr.  J.  W.,  108. 
Rogers,  Henry  D.,  214. 
Rogers,  Nathaniel  Peabody,  177, 

178. 
Rogers,   Major  Robert,  quoted, 

xxvi;  attack  on  St.  Francis  and 

return  journey,  53,  54. 
Rogers,  William  B.,  214. 


427 


INDEX 


Rogers,  Dr.,  of  Lancaster,  319. 

Romero,  Senor,  248. 

Rosebrook,  Eleazar,  settles  in 
Nash  and  Sawyer's  Location, 
70,  72;  Colebrook,  70;  incidents 
of  liife  there,  71 ;  in  Revolution- 
ary army,  71,  72;  builds  first 
inn,  73,  157;  life,  undertakings, 
and  death,  73;  epitaph,  73; 
President  Dwight  on,  74;  burial 
place,  75;  inn,  88;  President 
Dwight  at  his  house,  34,  35; 
Dr.  Shattuk,  35. 

Rosebrook,  Hannah,  character 
and  courage,  71;  Northumber- 
land, 71;  adventure  with  Indi- 
ans, 72;  death,  73;  burial 
place,  75. 

Rosebrook,  Lucius  M.,  230. 

Rosebrook,  William,  89. 

Rosebrook,  the  guide,  xxviii. 

Rosebrook, ,  builds  White 

Mountain  House,  166. 

Rosebrook  family,  70,  166. 

Rosebrook  House,  166. 

Roth,  Professor  Edward,  103. 

Rumney,  65. 

Russell's  Riverside  Cottage,  184. 

Rutledge,  Edward,  217. 

Saco,  the,  source,  xxxi,  20,  140; 
Great  Carbuncle,  15,  16,  399. 

Saco,  town,  40. 

Saco  Pond,  44. 

Sagadahoc,  truce  of,  9. 

St.  Francis,  Indian  town  in  Can- 
ada, 9,  II,  46;  attacked  by 
Rogers's  Rangers,  53,  54. 

St.  Lawrence  and  Atlantic  Rail- 
road, 221. 

Sandoz,  Ernest,  217. 

Sandwich,  North,  183,  184. 

Sandwich,  town,  settlement  and 
history,  67;  Lucy  Larcom,  183. 

Sandwich  Addition,  67. 

Sandwich  Dome,  67. 

Sandwich  Range,  10,  66,  68. 

Sanford,  40. 

Sargent,  Professor  Charles 
Sprague,  386. 

Sawyer,  Benjamin,  partner  of 
Nash,  26. 


Schoolcraft,  Henry  Rowe,  as  to 

name  Agiocochook,  xxix;  as  to 

Waumbek,  xxxi. 
Scott,  Representative  Charles  F., 

394- 
Scott  Bill,  394-95. 
Scott's  Mills,  228. 
Scudder,  Horace  E.,  69. 
Scudder,    Samuel    H.,    scientific 

work,  218;  first  editor  of  Appa- 

lachia,  218,  359. 
Searle,  Jesse,  58. 
Seward,  William  H.,  232. 
Shapleigh,  Frank  H.,  202. 
Shattuck,  A.  D.,  198. 
Shattuk,  Dr.  George,  quoted  on 

Crawford  Notch  turnpike,  27; 

explores  White  Mountains,  35. 
Shaw,  Chief  Justice  Lemuel,  36. 
Shelburne,  settlement,  65;  Indian 

raid,  65;  lumbering,  378. 
Shelters  on  the  Mountains,  351- 

55. 

Shepard,  Forrest,  106. 

Signal  Service,  U.S.,  250;  322-26. 

Signal  station,  built,  250,  322. 

Sigourney,  Mrs.  L.  H.,  86. 

Silliman,  Professor  Benjamin, 
103,  106;  describes  and  ex- 
plores the  Crawford  Notch, 
108,  109;  ascends  Mount 
Washington,  109;  Willey  Slide, 
127. 

Silver  Cascade,  35,  194. 

Silver  image  of  St.  Francis,  54. 

Sinclair,  John  G.,  161. 

Sinclair,  Richard,  67. 

Sinclair  House,  Greneral  Grant  at, 
243;  development,  332. 

Singrawack,  53. 

Slade,  Daniel  D.,  accompanies 
Parkman,  126;  quoted,  127. 

Slide-board,  244-46;  369. 

Slides.   See  Landslides. 

Slosson,  Annie  Trumbull,  scien- 
tific work,  218;  and  Mount 
Lafayette  House,  169;  on 
Mount  Washington,  247;  her 
attachment  to  Summit  House, 
361. 

Smillie,  James,  197. 

Smith,  James,  169. 


428 


INDEX 


Smith,  Nathaniel,  first  settler  in 

Fryeburg,  40. 
Smith,  Sergeant  Theodore,  316, 

318,  325- 
Smith,    Honorable    Thomas    J., 

257- 

Snow,  Nathaniel,  60. 

Snow  arch  in  Tuckerman's  Ra- 
vine, men  dine  in,  235;  Sewall 
E.  Faunce,  273,  274;  party  of 
Appalachians,  274. 

Snyder  Brook  paths,  355. 

Society  for  the  Protection  of  New 
Hampshire  Forests.  See  New 
Hampshire  Forests,  Society  for 
the  Protection  of. 

Sokokis,  the,  2,  3. 

Soltaire,  86. 

Sparhawk,  Mr.,  106. 

Spaulding,  John  H.,  his  Historical 
Relics  of  the  White  Mountains, 
xiii;  quoted,  13,  56;  on  Devil's 
Den,  219;  in  management  of 
Tip-Top  House,  231;  and  car- 
riage road,  235;  on  Nazro,  259, 
260;  winter  ascent  of  Mount 
Washington,  307-09. 

Spaulding,  Mary  B.  (Mrs.  Lucius 
Hartshorn),  231. 

Spaulding,  Samuel  Fitch,  231, 

Spencer,  Hobart,  66. 

Spencer,  Jared,  65. 

Spencer,  Joseph,  66. 

Spooner,  Thomas  Jeflferson,  161. 

"Spotted  fever,"  76. 

Sprague,  Isaac,  38. 

Stag  and  Hounds,  the,  66,  185. 

Stage  office  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 249. 

Stalbird,  Granny,  56. 

Stanley,  F.  E.,  372. 

Stanley,  F.  O.,  371. 

Stanley,  Oscar,  304. 

Stanley  Slide,  304. 

Starbird,  Granny,  56. 

Stark,  John,  captured  by  Indians, 
49. 

Stark,  William,  escapes  from  In- 
dians, 49;  grantee  of  Bartlett, 
60. 

Starr  King,  Mount,  130. 

Start,  Edwin  A.,  390.  _.  ^ 


Stearns,  E.  S.,  History  of  Ply- 
mouth, 50. 

Stevens,  Alice  Bartlett,  243. 

Stevens,  William,  326. 

Stickney,  Joseph,  Mount  Pleas- 
ant House,  338;  builds  Mount 
Washington  Hotel,  343. 

Stille,  Professor  C.  J.,  136. 

Stillings  Path,  345. 

Stinson,  David,  lulled,  49. 

Stinson  Lake,  49. 

Stockbridge,  Helen  E.,  compiler 
of  bibliography,  xiv. 

Stockwell,  Emmons,  57. 

Stone,  B.  G.,  197. 

Stone  cabins  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 79,  229. 

Storm  of  August,  1826,  91  #. 

Story,  Judge  Joseph,  172. 

"Story  of  Jack,"  263,  264. 

Strickland,  Frederick,  268,  269. 

Strong,  Rev.  George  Augustus, 
133.  136,  137. 

Stuart,  Charles  J.,  77,  78. 

Stuart,  R.  L.,  194. 

Stuart,  Mrs.  R.  L.,  201. 

Sugar  Hill,  61,  342. 

Sullivan  County  Railroad,  226. 

Summit  House,  first  one  built, 
230 ;  used  as  an  employees'  dor- 
mitory, 231;  taken  down,  231, 
251;  second,  built  and  opened, 
246,  247;  cost,  etc.,  247;  en- 
larged and  improved,  249; 
storm  of  June  30,  1900,  276; 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club 
field  meetings,  276, 351 ;  corner- 
stone for  new  one  laid,  366; 
large  one  planned,  366;  present 
one  built  and  opened,  367- 
69. 

Summit  House  on  Mount  Moosi- 
lauke.   See  Tip-Top  House. 

Sumner,  Charles,  and  Fredrika 
Bremer,  149;  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 232. 

Sunset  Hill  House,  342. 

Surprise,  Mount,  134. 

Survey  for  scenic  railway  and 
Summit  House,  366. 

Suydam,  James  A.,  200. 

Swain,  Darius,  256. 


429 


INDEX 


Sweetser,  M.  F.,  preparer  of 
Chisholm's  Guide-Book,  xiii; 
his  Handbook  (Osgood's  or 
Ticknor's  White  Mountains), 
xiii;  historical  material  in  lat- 
ter, xiii;  on  St.  Aspinquid,  5; 
opinion  of  Mount  Chocorua, 
10;  his  narration  of  the  Cho- 
corua legend,  lo-ii;  corrects 
error  as  to  Cutler's  River,  32; 
on  name  of  Conway,  50;  as  to 
house  on  Mount  Kearsarge, 
255;  on  Professor  Huntington, 
317;  on  leveling  of  Giant's 
Grave,  336;  on  "Josh  Billings," 

341. 

Swindell,  Jim,  55. 

"Switzerland  of  America,"  origin 
of  application  to  White  Moun- 
tains, xxxii. 

Taft,  Richard,  167,  168. 

Taft,  President  William  Howard, 
395. 

Talbot,  F,  A.,  242. 

Tamworth,  11,  68,  69. 

Tamworth  Iron  Works,  68. 

Taylor  family,  Campton,  66. 

Tent  on  Mount  Washington, 
229. 

Thaxter,  Celia,  175. 

"Things  as  They  Are,"  same  as 
"Summer  Tours,"  ill. 

Thompson,  Eben,  318. 

Thompson,  Dr.  Ebenezer,  62. 

Thompson,  Rev.  Frederick,  his 
reissue  of  Willey's  Incidents, 
xiv,  200. 

Thompson,  George,  177. 

Thompson,  J.  M.,  buys  first  Glen 
House,  171;  drowned,  171,  302, 
338;  body  found,  202;  first  per- 
son to  drive  up  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 236;  and  Dr.  Ball,  287, 
288,  296,  300;  bridle  path,  171, 
347. 

Thompson,  Samuel  W.,  tavern  at 
North  Conway,  159;  carries  the 
mail,  160;  builds  Kearsarge 
House,  160;  present  hotel  com- 
pleted, 161;  Champney  and 
other  artists  and,  196. 


Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  visits  to 
White  Mountains,  122-24;  in- 
jured in  Tuckerman's  Ravine, 
124. 

Thorn  Mountain  House,  172. 

Thornton,  66. 

Ticknor,  William  Davis,  117. 

Tip-Top  House,  the  old,  opened, 
231;  upper  story  added,  232; 
used  by  employees,  233;  office 
oi  Among  the  Clouds,  233,  252; 
disused,  233;  used  again  as 
hotel,  233,  365;  escapes  fire  of 
1908,  364;  burned,  369-71. 

Tip-Top  House  (so-called)  on 
Mount  Washington  in  1840, 
207,  229,  230. 

Tip-Top  House  on  Mount  Moosi- 
lauke,  256,  257,  258. 

Token,  The,  an  annual,  11. 

Torrey,  Bradford,  natural  his- 
tory, 218;  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 247. 

Torrey,  Herbert,  217. 

Tower,  Ambrose,  272. 

Train  sheds  on  Mount  Washing- 
ton, 249,  322. 

Trinity  Height,  259. 

Tripyramid,  Mount,  303. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  his  visit  to 
the  White  Mountains,  152-53; 
opinion   of   the   scenery,   etc., 

153- 
Trollope,  Mrs.  Frances,  141. 
Trudeau,  Thomas,  375. 
True,  Mr.,  settler,  65. 
Trumbull,  Dr.  J.  Hammond,  on 

meaning  of  Aglocochook,  xxx. 
Tucker,  Nathaniel,  36. 
Tuckerman,    Professor    Edward, 

32,    33;    explores    the    White 

Mountains,  120;  his  botanical 

work,  121;  his  tastes,  121. 
Tuckerman's    Ravine,    22,     31; 

name,  etc.,   120;  Thoreau  in, 

123;  paths,  347. 
Tudor,    Henry,    tour    of    White 

Mountains,  140,  141. 
Tug-of-War  Hill,  372. 
Turner,    Honorable   George    H., 

281,  282. 
Turner  family,  Bethlehem,  161. 


430 


INDEX 


Turnpike,  tenth  New  Hamp- 
shire, 27,  73,  87;  partly  de- 
stroyed, 97. 

Turnpike  from  Fabyan's  to  the 
Base,  begun,  238;  completed, 
241. 

Tweed,  Professor  Benjamin  F., 
129. 

Twin  Mountain  House,  Beecher 
at,  132,  133;  history,  334,  335. 

Twin  Mountain  Range,  Mount 
Guyot,  217;  trail,  356;  fire,  382. 

Twin  Mountain  Trail,  356. 

Tyler,  Mr.,  proprietor  of  Profile 
House,  168. 

Tyng,  Colonel,  42,  46. 

Upham,  Warren,  214. 
Upper  Bartlett,  60,  158. 

Valley  Way,  356. 

Vermont  Central  Railroad,  223. 

Vermont  Valley  Railroad,  226. 

Verrazano,  sees  White  Moun- 
tains, 17. 

Vials  or  Viles,  John  Alfred,  263. 

Vines,  Richard,  22,  120. 

Viseu,  bishop  of,  map,  18. 

Vose,  George  L.,  on  second  geo- 
logical survey,  209,  210;  ascent 
of  Mount  Carrigain,  348. 

Wadsworth  Athenaeum,  193. 

Wahwa,  45. 

Walker,  Donald,  304. 

Ward,  Julius  H.,  his  The  White 
Mountains,  xii;  "White  Moun- 
tain Forests  in  Peril,"  386,  387. 

Warren,  Jonas,  60. 

Warren,  Admiral  Sir  Peter,  64. 

Warren,  town,  settlement,  64; 
summer  boarders,  257. 

Washington,  Mount,  Passacona- 
way  legend,  4;  visibility  of,  19; 
ascended  by  Darby  Field,  20, 
21;  by  Josselyn,  23;  by  a  rang- 
ing company,  24;  by  Captain 
Evans  (twice),  25;  by  Bel- 
knap's party,  30;  height  esti- 
mated by  Dr.  Cutler,  32;  re- 
ceives its  name,  32,  33;  Dr. 
Cutler  ascends  again,  33;  height 


as  computed  by  Dr.  Bowditch, 
33;  ascended  by  Dr.  Shattuk, 
35;  by  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow  and 
party,  36;  height  computed  by 
Dr.  Bigelow's  party,  36;  first 
path,  77;  bridle  path,  77;  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford  guides  people, 
77  Jf.;  ascended  by  Adino  N. 
Brackett,     John    W.     Weeks, 
Phihp   Carrigain,   and  others, 
77,   78;   height  computed   by 
Brackett  and  others,  78;  short- 
er path  built,  78;  the  Misses 
Austin  ascend,  79;  first  shelters 
built,  79,  229;  first  horseback 
ascent,  84,  85;  Grenville  Mellen 
ascends,  84;  Western  travelers' 
experience    during    storm    of 
August,  1826,  99,  100;  Profes- 
sor Silliman  ascends,  109;  Haw- 
thorne ascends,  115;  Professor 
Tuckerman  and,  121;  Thoreau 
ascends,  122,  123;  Parkman  as- 
cends, 126;  Starr  King  ascends, 
129;  Phillips  Brooks  at,   136; 
Latrobe  and  Irving,  142 ;  E.  T. 
Coke,  144;  Anthony  Trollope, 
152;  J.  M.  Thompson's  path, 
171;  Lucy  Larcom,  183,  184; 
Bryant,  187;  Edward  Everett 
Hale,     207,     230;     President 
Hitchcock,   208;  height  meas- 
ured   by    Guyot,    217;    ascer- 
tained by  Captain  T.  J.  Cram, 
217;  railroad  reaches  Base,  225; 
E.   A.    Crawford's   tent,    229; 
hotels  on,  230-33;  first  and  sec- 
ond visits  of  Colonel  Charles 
Parsons,    230;    carriage    road, 
234-36;    height    measured    by 
Engineers   Cavis  and    Ricker, 
235 ;  railway,  237-42 ;  President 
Grant  visits,  242 ;  fatal  accident 
on  carriage  road,  243;  empty 
train  wrecked,  244;  use  of  slide- 
boards,    244-46;    building    of 
second    Summit    House,    246, 
247;  notables  on,  232,  247,  248; 
post-office     established,     249; 
stage  office  built,  249;  signal 
station  built,  250;  second  ob- 
servatory,    250;     Among    the 


431 


INDEX 


Clouds  office,  251;  old  Summit 
House  taken  down,  251 ;  Among 
the  Clouds,  251-53;  Captain 
Alden  Partridge,  256;  Trinity 
Height,  259;  J.  C.  Nazro,  259- 
61;  casualties,  267^.;  Dr.  Ball, 
287^.;  winter  ascents,  305-09, 
327-30;  winter  occupation, 
309-21;  U.S.  Signal  Service, 
322-26;  low  temperatures  re- 
corded, 319;  velocity  of  wind, 
320,  322,  323;  train-shed  blown 
down,  322;  William  Stevens 
dies  on,  326;  Sergeant  Cone  in- 
jured, 326;  winter  ascents  by 
women,  330;  Stillings  Path, 
345;  Gordon  Path,  345;  Davis 
Path,  346;  Tuckerman's  Ra- 
vine Path,  347;  records  of  as- 
cents, 357;  great  fire,  360-64; 
cornerstone  of  a  new  Summit 
House  laid,  366;  plans  for  sce- 
nic railway  and  large  Summit 
House,  366;  present  Summit 
House,  367-69;  "Climbs  to  the 
Clouds,"  371,  372 ;  Ambassador 
Bryce  at,  372;  acquired  for 
National  Forest,  397,  398. 

Washington  House  (Conway)  ,159. 

Waterville,  210. 

Watson,  L.  M.,  356. 

Waumbek,  the  name,  xxxi. 

Waumbek  Hotel,  railroad  to,  226; 
history,  342. 

Waumbekketmethna,  xxx. 

Webster,  Daniel,  teaches  at  Frye- 
burg,  47;  plea  at  Plymouth,  49- 
50;  visits  Ethan  Allen  Craw- 
ford's and  ascends  Mount 
Washington,  112;  name  given 
to  mountain,  113;  Great  Stone 
Face,  116;  at  Mount  Crawford 
House,  158;  at  Jackson,  172. 

Webster,  Colonel  David,  173. 

Webster,  John,  68. 

Webster,  Colonel  William,  173. 

Webster   Tavern   at    Plymouth, 

173. 
Weed,  Mr.,  makes  augers,  69. 
Weed,  Orlando,  67. 
Weeks,  John  W.,  the  explorer, 

77,  78. 


Weeks,  Representative  (now  Sen- 
ator) John  W.,  393. 

Weeks  Bill  and  Act,  394-95,  396, 
399,  400,  401. 

Weiss,  Ewald,  274,  275. 

Wells  River,  Vt.,  223,  224. 

Wentworth,  Governor  Benning, 
26,  50,  51,  60,  67. 

Wentworth,  General  M.  C,  172. 

Wentworth,  Mark  H.,  52. 

Wentworth,  Mount,  106. 

Wentworth,  Sir  Thomas,  63. 

Wentworth,     ,     porter    for 

Thoreau,  123. 

Wentworth  Hall,  172. 

West  Campton,  66,  185,  194,  203. 

West  Ossipee  (now  Mount  Whit- 
tier),  179,  182. 

West  Thornton,  mound,  3,  66. 

Wheeler,  Amos,  60,  161. 

Wheeler,  Vice-President  William 
A.,  248. 

Wheelwright,  Reverend  John,  5. 

Whipple,  Colonel  Joseph,  29,  52, 

53.  55.  56. 

Whistler,  George  Washmgton, 
222. 

Whitcher,  Chase,  255. 

Whitcomb,  Francis,  loi. 

White,  Franklin,  307-09. 

White,  Colonel  John  H.,  166. 

White  Hills,  use  of  the  name,  xxiii. 
See  White  Mountains. 

White  Mountain  Club,  348,  349. 

White  Mountain  Echo,  253,  254. 

White  Mountain  House,  81,  83; 
history  of,  165,  166,  336. 

White  Mountain  National  Forest, 
388-401,  403. 

White  Mountain  Notch.  See 
Crawford  Notch. 

White  Mountain  School  of  artists, 
189. 

White  Mountain  Station  House 
(Gorham),  169. 

White  Mountains,  literature  of, 
ix_^.;  extent  and  character  of 
the  region,  xxiii;  physical  geog- 
raphy and  geology,  xxiii;  their 
name  and  its  origin,  xxiii,  xxiv; 
first  appearance  of  name  in 
print,  xxv-xxvi;  Indian  names, 


432 


INDEX 


xxix-xxxi;  as  a  river  source, 
xxxi;  as  a  summer  playground, 
xxxi;  dearth  of  historical  inter- 
est, xxxii;  Indian  legend  and 
history,  iff.;  Indian  legend  of 
their  origin,  13;  early  explorers, 
17^.;  maps,  l8, 19;  explored  by 
Darby  Field,  20;  by  Thomas 
Gorges  and  Richard  Vines,  22 ; 
by  John  Josselyn,  23;  by  two 
parties  of  men,  24;  by  Captain 
Evans,  25;  Belknap's  party, 
27  Jf.;  Dr.  Cutler  again.  Dr. 
Peck  and  Dr.  Bowditch,  33; 
visited  by  Reverend  Dr,  Timo- 
thy Dwight,  33,  34,  35;  by  Dr. 
George  Shattuk,  35;  by  Dr. 
Jacob  Bigelow  and  others^  35, 
36;  by  Dr.  Boott,  36,  37;  by 
Oakes,  37;  first  settlements, 
39^.;  first  hotel  in,  built,  73; 
various  persons  explore  or  visit, 
\oiff.;  Hawthorne  in,  115; 
Emerson  in,  118-20;  Professor 
Tuckerman  explores,  120-21; 
Thoreau  in,  122-24;  Francis 
Parkman  visits,  124-27;  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  in,  127,  131-33; 
Phillips  Brooks  in,  127, 133-37; 
T.  Starr  King  in,  127,  128-31; 
Hosea  Ballou,  2d,  in,  128;  early 
foreign  visitors,  139  ff.;  Wash- 
ington Irving  in,  142, 143;  early 
hotels  and  beginnings  of  region 
as  summer  resort,  154 Jf.;  poets 
in,  175-88;  Whittier,  176-82; 
Lucy  Larcom,  183-85;  Long- 
fellow, 185-86;  Bryant,  186-88; 
scenery  described  by  Bryant, 
187-88;  painters  in,  188-203; 
importance  in  American  art, 
190;  Thomas  Cole,  190-93; 
Henry  Cheeves  Pratt,  191, 
194;  Thomas  Doughty,  194; 
Champney  and  other  artists 
i".  195  ^M  later  scientific  ex- 
plorations of,  204^.;  first 
geological  survey,  204-08;  sec- 
ond geological  survey,  208-14; 
early  geological  explorers,  214; 
Agassiz,  215-16;  Guyot,  216, 
217;  railroads  to  and  in,  220- 


28;  John  E.  Lyon  and,  224; 
General  Grant,  242,  243;  note- 
worthy "characters"  of,  259- 
66;  casualties,  267-84;  Dr. 
Ball,  284-301;  landslides,  302- 
04;  later  hotels,  331-44;  early 
trails  in,  345-48;  White  Moun- 
tain Club,  348-49;  work  of 
Appalachian  Mountain  Club  in, 
350-57.  358-59;  Mount  Wash- 
ington fire,  360-64;  lumber  in- 
dustry in,  378-79.  383-87; 
other  wood  industries,  379-80; 
forest  fires,  381-83;  history  of 
National  Forest  Reserve,  388- 
401;  recent  changes  in  travel 
and  business,  405-09;  use  as  a 
winter  resort,  408-09. 

White  Mountains  Railroad,  224, 
225,  336. 

White  River  Junction,  Vt.,  223. 

Whiteface,  Mount,  67,  210. 

Whitefield,  60. 

Whitefield  and  Jefferson  Rail- 
road, 226. 

Whiting,  Leonard,  62, 

Whitney,  Josiah  Dwight,  206. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  uses  Agio- 
cochook,  xxx;  accepts  Haw- 
thorne's "The  Great  Stone 
Face,"  117;  the  poet  of  the 
White  Hills,  176-82;  friendship 
with  Lucy  Larcom,  182,  183. 

Whittier,  Mount,  182. 

Wild  River  Valley,  382,  397. 

Wilde,  Hamilton,  198. 

Wilder,  Joseph,  63. 

Willard,  Frances  E.,  356. 

Willard,  Joseph,  113. 

Willard,  Mount,  carriage  road, 
85;  named,  113;  Hon.  Amelia 
Matilda  Murray,  151 ;  Anthony 
Trollope,  153;  explorations  on, 
213;  Guyot,  217. 

Willard,  Sidney,  113. 

Willey,  Benjamin  G.,  his  Inci- 
dents in  White  Mountain  His- 
tory, xiv;  quoted,  13,  40,  53,  83; 
on  the  Willey  disaster,  85,  87; 
on  building  of  Willey  House, 
89;  death,  90;  on  Frederick 
Strickland,  268. 


433 


INDEX 


Willey,  George  F.,  86. 

Willey,  Captain  Samuel,  60,  90. 

Willey,  Samuel,  Jr.,  85;  moves 
into  Willey  House,  90;  thinks 
of  removal,  90;  body  found, 
96. 

Willey,  Mrs.  Samuel,  Jr.,  90,  96. 

Willey,  Selden  C,  178,  183. 

Willey  Brook  Bridge,  227. 

Willey  Disaster,  85  jf.;  109,  no, 
141. 

Willey  family,  70. 

Willey  Hotel,  built,  164;  burned, 
343. 

Willey  House,  built,  89,  157;  re- 
paired, 89;  burned,  89;  Ethan 
Allen  Crawford  runs  it,  89; 
Samuel  Willey,  Jr.,  moves  into, 
90;  Pendexter  moves  into,  100; 
no.  III;  engraving  of,  in; 
repaired  by  Horace  Fabyan, 
164;  Thomas  Cole  at,  191; 
burned,  343. 

Willey  Slide,  occurs,  92 ;  Professor 

,  Silliman,  109,  127;  Parkman 
climbs,  127;  Sir  Charles  Lyell 
examines,  147;  Thomas  Hills 
painting,  200. 

Williams,  artist,  203. 

Williams,  M.  B,,  206. 


Williamson,  John,  197. 

Willis,  N.  P.,  194,  196. 

Wilson,  Edward  L.,  Mount 
Washington  in  Winter,  305; 
on  Mount  Washington  in  win- 
ter, 319,  327,  328. 

Wilson,  General  John,  77. 

Wind  velocity  on  Mount  Wash- 
ington, 320,  322,  323. 

"Wine  Hills"  map,  18. 

Winthrop,  Governor  John,  Jour- 
nal, XXV,  20;  account  of  Darby 
Field's  expeditions,  20,  21;  ac- 
count of  Gorges  and  Vines's 
exploration,  22. 

Wireless  telegraphy  between 
huts,  354. 

Wonnalancet,  Indian  sachem,  9. 

Wood,  William,  his  New  Eng- 
land's Prospect,  quoted  from,  8. 

Woodbridge,  F.,  318. 

Woodbury,  Captain  Lot,  161. 

Wood-pulp  industry,  379,  380. 

Woodstock,  mound,  3;  granted 
and  settled,  62,  63. 

Wyman,  Ensign  Seth,  46. 

Yale  College,  34. 

Zealand  Valley,  381,  385,  399. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


iCamping  in  the  White  Mountains 


^  By    Ella    Shannon    Bowles 

The  boauUes  of  the  White  Moun-  Mountain  Reserve.  One  of  the  finest 
tain  region  are  easily  accessible  by  fol-  I  views  in  New  Hampshire  is  obtained 
lowing  trails  into  the  ancient  forest,  f'^o'"  Mount  Cardigan,  and  a  camp- 
by  mountain  climbing,  fishing,  and  '"f  ,jf '^^  j«  ^^''']^  developed  there. 
1,.,    f        •  .  ..  Further     down     m     the     State,     near 

hunting  m  season,   to  camper,  motor-  !  sunapee.  is  the  Pillsbury  tract,  which 
1st,  and   "hiker."     The   National  Gov- .  offer.s  many  advantages  to  the  camptfi-. 


ernment,  the  State  of  New  Hampshire 
the  Society  for  the  Protection  of  New 
Hampshire  Forests,  and  the  Appa- 
lachian Mountain  Club  are  developing 
various  plans  by  which  tourists  may 
readily  visit  the  natural  wonders  of 
"The  Old  Granite   State." 

The  White  Mountain  National  For- 
est, under  the  direction  of  the  Forest 
Service,  is  open  to  the  public  and  stop- 
ping places  where  campers  may  cook  j 


Coming  back  again  Into  the  h^rt 
of  the  M^hite  Mountains,  the  tourist. 
finds  that  the  Appalachian  MtwiifTiam 
Club  has  erected  along  many  of  th* 
trails  open  .shelters  for  the  I'ieneRt  of 
Irampors  and  mountain  cli>nbers.  On 
Mount  Madison,  at  the  J/ake  of  the 
Clouds,  and  at  Carter  Notch,  ar» 
.stone  huts,  under  thi>  care  of  l«;ep- 
ers,  ivhere  one  ma.\yfind  food  and 
."Shelter  for  a  nornvial  fee.  The 
"Guide  to  Paths  ixy  the  White   Moun- 


meala  and  find  shelter  are  maintained,  j  lain.s  and  Adjacent  Regions."  pub- 
The  Dolly  Copp,  or  Copp  Spring  Camp  j  Kshed  by  the  Appalachian  Mountain 
Ground,  —    -      - 

on   tho    Glf 


y  Lopp,  or  Copp  Spring  Camp  i-sneu  oy  me  .f»ppaiacnian  iviountain 
is  six  miles  up  from  GoihaJnK'l"^,  1050  Tie»Jfiont  Building.  Boston, 
ilen    Road,    which   follows    up    Mass.,   is   valuable   for  descriptions  of 


trn'ls.  and  interesting  information 
and  irt.'ip!fvmay  be  obtained  from  the 
Ftiiest  Sut^ervisor  at  Gorham,  N.  H. 

In  the  Kinsman  Notch,  six  miles 
west  of  North  'Woodstock  and  twer;*-' 
miles  southeast  of  Bethlehem,  i.5  jno 
of   the   most    remarkable   scenic    won  - 

Lo^r. 


the  Peabody  River,  with  a  marvellous 
view  of  Mount  Washington  through 
the  Pinkham  Notch,  noted  for  its 
beautiful  waterfalls,  and  ojti  to  Glen. 
This  camp  ground  is  typical  of  the 
sites  maintained  by  the  Forest  Ser- 
vice, with  a  crystal  spring  of  water,  ,  .  ,.  ^^rr.„  », 
stoned  up;  high,  dry  places  for  pitch-  'l^^'ilJ"  iltjyH  /?  °.""  I"^ 
ing  tents,  sanitary  conveniences,  and 
plenty  of  dry  wood  for  fires. 

Farther  up  on  this  same  road,  nea.t' 
Glen  Ellis  Falls,  is  another  can»p 
ground  w-hich  bears  the  name  of  the 
falls.  Gale  River  Camp  Ground  is  on 
the  road  from  the  Crawford  to  the 
Franconia  Notch  and  is  convenient 
for  the  tourist  who  plans  to  visit  the  i 


River,  a  series  of  caverns  out  in  soli  1 
•^Sranite  by  an  ancient  glacial  stream, 
is  in  a  tract  of  land  purchased  hv 
the  Society  for  Protection  of  Ne"- 
Hampshire  Forests  in  1911.  It  was  a 
wild,  rough  place,  inaccessible  to 
women,  and  the  Sitate  Federation  of 
Women's  Clubs  contributed  -unds  f" 
put    in    ladders    to    reach    the    gorge. 


Old   Man    of   the    Mountains    and    the  I  ^^«    ^/^\^.  °P^"«^    ^^Tl-  *°  /^'''^ 
Flume.     There  are  attractive  camping  ^l'"''?"  ^"  "!^'  ^^"^  ^^'""^  V""^  **'"'" 

^;lre^^^el;^^r^'ni°t^;^?ta^r"  ^^l^  i^ '!s\^^^?^iss  Zi  ^'Se 

Valley,  near  the  bnlted  States  ranger  L^^i^^      employs  college  boys  to  shon^ 

nr^Z     fn    ^v,       f^^T  7'^t'''  ^^^^*^'"    visitors  through  the  passages.    Lunches 

Bridge    m    the    town     of     Livermore.  |  ^re  served,  lodgings  in  tents  are  pro- 

Aside     from    these    convenient     camp  1  ..j^e^     a„,,    there    is    a   free    camping 

grounds   picnickers    and   tourists   may  ^^  for  automobile   parties.  ^ 

feel  free  to  use  tl.e  forest  for  camping,        ..Touiing  Afoot.-  by   Dr.  C.   P    For- 

,i*'i,"^  respect  is  paid  to  safety  rules,    ^yce.   is  a  new  number  of  the  outing 

The    State    of    New    Hampshire    is    handbooks     issued     by      the     Outins 

ilalso  anxious  to  make  things  pleasant    Publishing   Company.      IL    contains    in 

Hfor  campens.     On  the  site  of  the  old  j  compact    form    an    entertaining    and 

IWilley   House   on   the   State   lands    in  ,  dtar   presentation   of   the   well   esitab- 

the   Crawford  Notch    a  camp  ground  i  iLshed    rules    for    comfort    in    "hitting 

i;and  rest   room  are   to  be  maintained,    the  trial,"  with   some   matter  of  new 

fin     the     foothills     of     the     mountain  I  v.ilue    from    the    author's    experienc?^ 

region,  near  Newfound  Lake,  the  State  j  particularly    as    to    shelters    and    out- 

owns     2.000    acres     in    the     Cardigan    door   beds.  ^ 


1 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Ai^^es 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


«1 


k 


Form  L9-50»i-9,'60(B361064)444 


lyLi^ 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAOUTY 


